Bullied at school ? Don’t wait to say STOP!

Each year, around 10% of kids are bullied in school by one or several of their classmates. Repeated insults, physical attacks and teasing lead to distress, such as anxiety, depression and isolation. Despite what one might think, it is not the physical assault, but rather the social isolation that is very harmful to the child. Physical violence catches the eye. However, a survey carried out in the United States revealed that bullying through social exclusion is not taken as seriously as it should be. Only 48% of those surveyed felt that social exclusion of a child was related to bullying.

Did you know that bullying affected certain areas of the brain?
In a large European study undertaken in 2018, researchers analyzed magnetic resonance imaging data and questionnaires from 682 young teenagers. Among them, 36 had experienced severe school bullying. It turned out that for these victims, the impacted area of the brain was the putamen. Its main functions: coordinate movements; regulate emotions and enabling the learning process. According to the study, the more the young child or teenager has been harassed, the more this area of the brain grows in volume (versus the child who has not been harassed).
For a better understanding of the growth of the putamen, it is interesting to know that for teenagers who haven’t been bullied, the volume of the brain is reduced, which is explained by the loss of synaptic connections between neurons. This reduction in brain volume is closely related to the acquisition of the effective system of motivation, emotional management and learning. In the case of patients who have been bullied, the opposite is observed. This means that bullying has a serious impact on the brain.
The positive news is that in the teenage years the brain is still very flexible. Thanks to an individual psychological approach, the damage can still be repaired. Social bullying should not leave us indifferent; we should react as soon as possible.

Did you ever experience bullying at school? How did you react?