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By , Editorial Team Published

Bullying and What It Leaves Behind

Bullying is repeated harm with a power imbalance, not ordinary conflict. What the evidence shows about its effects, what stops it, and what adults get wrong.

5 min read

Pop-art illustration of a young person standing alone in the middle of an empty school corridor, looking at a phone held up to their face.

Key takeaways

  • Three features define it: intent to harm, repetition, and a power imbalance. Two children of equal standing having a serious falling out is conflict, and the response that helps conflict makes bullying worse.
  • The effects last. Longitudinal work by Copeland and colleagues found people bullied in childhood had elevated rates of anxiety and depression into adulthood, after accounting for family hardship.
  • Whole-school programmes work, modestly and measurably. Gaffney and colleagues' meta-analysis found reductions of roughly a fifth in perpetration and victimisation, which is real without being transformative.
  • Mediation between the parties is the classic mistake. Where there is a power imbalance, putting both people in a room to work it out asks the target to negotiate with someone who holds power over them.
  • Cyberbullying is mostly not a separate population. It overlaps heavily with in-person bullying, and its distinguishing features are that it follows the child home and leaves a record.

Bullying has a definition, and the definition is what makes the right response different from the intuitive one. Olweus established the three features still used: intent to harm, repetition, and an imbalance of power. [olweus-1993-bullying] The third is the one adults most often miss, and missing it leads directly to the intervention that makes things worse. This guide covers what the evidence shows about the effects, what actually reduces it, and what to do.

Conflict and bullying need opposite responses

Two children of roughly equal standing having a bitter argument is conflict. One child repeatedly targeted by someone with more social power is bullying. They look similar from a distance and they are not the same thing.

Conflict responds well to mediation: both parties hear each other, both adjust, both have something to give up. Bullying does not, because the parties are not equal. Putting a target in a room with the person targeting them asks them to negotiate with someone who holds power over them, in front of an adult who will then leave. It also signals that the adult sees this as a dispute with two sides.

This is the single most common and most damaging mistake, and it is usually made in good faith by someone trying to be even-handed.

The effects are durable

The folk position is that bullying is part of growing up and toughens children. The longitudinal evidence contradicts it.

Copeland and colleagues followed a large cohort into adulthood and found that people bullied in childhood had elevated rates of anxiety disorders and depression as adults, holding after adjustment for childhood hardship and family difficulties. [copeland-2013-adult] Those who were both bullied and bullied others fared worst on several outcomes, a group often overlooked because they are harder to sympathise with.

That does not mean every bullied child is harmed lastingly, and plenty are not. It means the harm is real at population level and the reassuring story is not supported.

Two responses, and where they lead Illustrative
0 25 50 75 100 Frequency of incidents Reported Week 2 Week 4 Week 8 End of term Adults stop the behaviour Mediation between parties

A schematic of the divergence described in the intervention literature, where mediation is contraindicated given a power imbalance. Values illustrate direction rather than measured incident counts.

What works, and by how much

Whole-school programmes are the answer with evidence behind it, and the honest version of that answer includes the effect size. Gaffney and colleagues pooled evaluations and found reductions of roughly a fifth in both perpetration and victimisation. [gaffney-2019-meta]

A fifth is worth having and is not a solution. Anyone promising more than that is overselling, and a school that runs an assembly and considers the matter closed has done almost nothing.

The components that recur in effective programmes are unglamorous:

  • Consistent adult response, so the outcome does not depend on which teacher sees it
  • A reporting route children will actually use, which usually means not requiring them to be seen walking into an office
  • Supervision at the times and places it happens, which is corridors, changing rooms and the walk home rather than classrooms
  • Work with bystanders, because most incidents have an audience and what the audience does changes what happens next

Cyberbullying

Mostly the same children rather than a separate population: online and in-person bullying overlap heavily, so treating them as distinct problems usually misses that it is one problem with an extra channel.

Two things genuinely differ. It follows the child home, removing the respite the end of the school day used to provide. And it leaves a record, which is both distressing, because the material persists and can be re-shared, and useful, because evidence exists in a form that corridor incidents almost never produce.

Advice to log off underestimates what is being asked. For most adolescents the online social world is the social world, and leaving it is closer to social withdrawal than to switching off a device. Our guide to screen time covers the wider picture and gen Z social anxiety covers what tends to follow.

Signs worth acting on

For a child you are worried about. This is not a checklist for a diagnosis; it lists changes that are worth asking about directly rather than waiting out.

0 of 6 ticked

What to do

Listen without immediately promising to fix it. Children frequently stop telling adults things because the last time they did, control of what happened next left their hands. Asking what they want to happen before acting keeps the channel open.

Record specifics. Dates, what happened, who was present, screenshots where it is online. Specifics are what a school can act on; a general report of unkindness is not.

Report in writing. A written report creates a record and a timeline. A conversation at the school gate does neither, however sympathetic the response.

Ask what will be done and by when, and follow up on that date. And decline mediation if it is offered, for the reasons above.

When to seek help

See a doctor if a child’s mood, sleep or eating has changed and stayed changed, if they are avoiding school persistently, or if they say anything about not wanting to be here. Bullying is a common trigger for anxiety and depression in children, and both are treatable.

For adults still carrying this, it is a legitimate thing to bring to therapy. Copeland’s findings are about adults, and being bullied at twelve is a reasonable thing to be discussing at forty. Our pillar on trauma and our guide to social anxiety cover what it most often leaves.

If a child is having thoughts of harming themselves, seek help now rather than at the next appointment. Contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.

How MyFreud can help

Children rarely announce this, and what adults usually have is a vague sense that something changed a few weeks ago. Tracking mood daily turns that impression into a record with dates on it, which is exactly what a school or a doctor can act on.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as bullying rather than conflict?

Three things together: intent to cause harm, repetition over time, and an imbalance of power, which can be physical, social or numerical. Two children of roughly equal standing having a serious argument is conflict, however unpleasant. One child repeatedly targeted by someone with more social power is bullying. The distinction is not pedantry, because the interventions differ and one of them is harmful in the wrong place. Conflict responds to mediation and to both parties hearing each other. Bullying responds to the behaviour being stopped by adults, and mediation makes it worse.

Do the effects really last into adulthood?

The longitudinal evidence says yes. Copeland and colleagues followed a large cohort and found that people bullied in childhood had elevated rates of anxiety disorders and depression in adulthood, and that this held after adjusting for childhood hardship and family difficulties. Those who both bullied and were bullied fared worst on several measures. This is worth stating plainly because the folk position, that it toughens children up or is simply part of growing up, is contradicted by the data rather than merely unfashionable.

What actually stops bullying?

Whole-school approaches with the best evidence behind them, rather than assemblies or one-off talks. Gaffney and colleagues pooled the evaluations and found reductions of roughly a fifth in both perpetration and victimisation, which is a real effect and not a solved problem. The components that recur in effective programmes are consistent adult response, clear reporting routes that a child will actually use, playground and corridor supervision at the times and places it happens, and work with bystanders, since most incidents have an audience and what the audience does changes the outcome.

Is cyberbullying different?

Somewhat, and less than the separate name implies. The populations overlap heavily: most children bullied online are also bullied in person, so treating it as a distinct problem misses that it is usually the same problem with an extra channel. Two features do genuinely differ. It follows the child home, removing the respite that the end of the school day used to provide. And it leaves a record, which is distressing because the material persists and useful because evidence exists in a way it rarely does for corridor incidents. Advice to simply log off ignores that the social world it contains is the child's actual social world.

What should I do if my child is being bullied?

Listen without immediately promising to fix it, because a child who fears losing control of what happens next often stops telling you things. Record specifics: dates, what happened, who was present, and screenshots where it is online. Report in writing rather than in conversation, because a written record creates an obligation and a timeline that a corridor chat does not. Ask what the school will do and by when, and follow up. And resist the request to have the children talk it out: where there is a power imbalance, mediation asks your child to negotiate with someone who holds power over them.

References

  1. 1.Olweus D ( 1993). Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Blackwell.
  2. 2.Copeland WE, Wolke D, Angold A, Costello EJ ( 2013). Adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying and being bullied by peers in childhood and adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry.
  3. 3.Gaffney H, Ttofi MM, Farrington DP ( 2019). Evaluating the effectiveness of school-bullying prevention programs: an updated meta-analytical review. Aggression and Violent Behavior.