Researcher: Kindergarteners See Bullying Every 5 Minutes
Taunts, Pushing Make Victims
POSTED: 4:03 p.m. EDT April 13, 2004
UPDATED: 3:28 p.m. EDT April 14, 2004
A new study finds children are the targets of verbal or physical harassment about once every five minutes.
Jim Snyder, a psychology professor at Wichita State University, studied 266 kindergartners at a Wichita, Kan. school playground over two years.
He saw behavior ranging from telling someone she has cooties to pushing and other physical violence.
He found that harassment decreases as children move on from kindergarten and learn how to deal with it. But he also found that about 10 percent of the children in the study became chronic victims.
"That harassment gets more focused on fewer and fewer kids," Snyder said. "It's like acquiring over time a status of being a victim."
He said the way people establish themselves among peers turns out to be very important.
His findings were published in the journal Child Development.
The study was funded by a $2.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which views bullying as a public health issue.
Snyder says that the massacre at Columbine High School caused people to realize that bullying is not acceptable.
Dealing With Bullies
Can You Identify Bullying?
Bullying A Health Issue?
Previous Stories:
- March 1, 2004: Web Cartoons Take Stand Against Bullying
- December 10, 2003: Bullies Often Thought Of As 'Cool,' Study Says
- November 12, 2003: Bullied Kids Risk Depression, Antisocial Behavior
- September 4, 2003: Report: Bullying More Than Childhood Ritual
- April 14, 2003: Violent Behavior Seen In Bullying Victims
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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