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Researchers have a few additional ideas to explain the occurrence of bullying. Even with extensive efforts to increase awareness of bullying to prevent it from happening, verbal bullying seems to be the most resistant to these efforts 4 . Researchers theorize that some forms of verbal bullying, such as teasing, are not considered to be bullying by some people, so they don’t find an issue with teasing others. However, the targets of this type of bullying sometimes take it more seriously and feel the negative effects. One explanation is that TV shows and other media have normalized teasing as a friendly interaction, so many children don’t perceive this as out of the ordinary. In addition, the prevalence of bullying between genders has reversed. One recent change is the increase in bullying among young girls 5 . While school is one of the most frequent settings of bullying, it can occur in many other situations. Girls have been increasing levels of achievement in recent decades, such as graduating from both high school and college at higher rates than boys. As girls continue to do so, the expectations accompanying their achievements also increase. This can lead to stress that may give way to taking it out on other girls who may be seen as competition. As the opportunities for achievement continue to balance out between boys and girls, more girls may be targeted for taking those opportunities. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, behavior and conduct problems are common among bullies 6 . The incidence of children with behavior problems being bullies is five times higher than those who don’t have behavior problems. Similarly, the prevalence of adolescents with behavior problems being bullies is four times higher than those without. Not only is the prevalence of perpetrating bullying higher in those with behavior problems, but they also have a low prevalence of being the victims of bullying. Encouragingly, improvements have been made in school systems to decrease the rate of bullying. After

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Chapter 1: Bullying Today