Am I a bully?
“Bullying” in Delaware means:
any intentional written, electronic, verbal or physical act against you that: (1) instills reasonable fear of substantial harm to your emotional or physical well-being or substantial damage to your property; (2) creates a threatening, humiliating or abusive educational environment (meaning – you are afraid to go to school); (3) interferes with you having a safe school environment; or (4) coerces others to demean, embarrass or cause any harm to you.
What does that mean? Here are examples of bullying – what it might look or feel like:
- I tease others a lot, call them names, insult them, or spread rumors about them.
- I leave others out (like excluding them from my lunch table) or try to make others not be friends with them.
- I use texting, tweeting and/or Facebook to spread rumors about people to insult or embarrass them.
- I do these things over and over.
- I take things from people or make them give me their stuff by threatening them.
- Other kids seem really upset when I do these things.
- Other kids avoid hanging around me or seem scared of me.
- Doing these things makes me feel cool or powerful.
If you experience any of the symptoms below, your behavior needs to change before you hurt others and yourself.
- no lasting friendships or constantly changing groups of friends
- feeling angry, depressed, anxious, lonely
- making yourself feel better by teasing and taunting others.
- hang out at specific locations such as a neighborhood store, playground, or school to make fun of others and take their money and belongings
- blame others for your problems and take your frustration out on them
- gossip about others to make yourself look better
- put others down so you can look “cool”