ISC-Lahore Stories

Accidental Bullying by Rana Jazib Grade 11

Accidental Bullying: The Impact is Deeper Than You May Believe

“You are a bully!” Has someone ever called you out for being a bully, but you think to yourself “I’ve never bullied anyone, ever.” There are times when we hurt individuals unintentionally! What you may see as a joke or an action that is harmless can have a deep and devastating impact on the other individual.

Suppose you made a remark about your friend thinking that “ohh, this is just a humorous joke.” However, you don’t know if the receiver will see it the same way, they may even get offended or hurt. What this is labelled as is accidental bullying.

The Origins of “Accidental Bullying”

Where does this term stem from, you may ask? Since people who have been labeled for bullying can face serious repercussions, this form of bullying is given a new name, accidental bullying. Accidental bullying refers to harassment where the "perpetrator" never had any intentions to harm, yet their actions still hurt the "victim."

To understand how ‘accidental bullying’ gets its name, we need to first understand what makes bullying ‘bullying’. According to the National Centre Against Bullying, Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behavior that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm.

What is Considered As Accidental Bullying – Requirements & Examples

From this definition, we can set up some requirements for bullying:

  • The general pretense of bullying is to display harmful behavior towards another, however, this harm comes from a “misuse of power” or a power dynamic. An interesting way to differentiate between bullying and conflict.

< >It also requires this harm to be ongoing or repeated, meaning a one-time thing cannot be defined as bullying. There was not a significant power dynamic.Your attacker was the same age as you.You were attacked by a single person.

Rana Jazib 

Grade 11

 

References:

https://bulliesout.com/need-support/young-people/the-accidental-bully/

https://theconversation.com/can-you-unintentionally-bully-someone-heres-the-science-150621

https://cyberbullying.org/unintentional_bully

https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents/definition-of-bullying/

https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/questions-answered/conflict-vs-bullying.asp

https://www.ted.com/talks/unintentional_bullying

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