Bullying is not a Yamaji word. Yamaji children and young people usually refer to bullying as: teasing, picking on someone, smashing, or carrying yarns.
Often people think bullying is only ‘big kids on little kids’. It is common for people to call bullying between kids who are the same age ‘just teasing’ and to believe this behaviour is okay.
- Yamaji wangi
- ‘Bullying is big kids on little kids’
- Yamaji parent / carer
- ‘Bullying means picking on someone for fun’
- Yamaji parent / carer
- ‘Bullying starts as teasing and leads to more serious bullying’
- Yamaji AIEO
Of particular note is the language used by parents and carers in describing bullying behaviours. The next quote uses the term ‘terrorising’ to describe experiences of Aboriginal children in community areas where parents and carers assume their children will be safe and/or supervised.
- Yamaji wangi
- ‘At school definitely that’s where bullies get the most chance of terrorising the other kids, although sometimes it happens in areas around town made especially for kids, places like the parks, skate ramp/parks, swimming pool and the youth centre’
- Yamaji AIEO
A standard definition of bullying
Generally, bullying means deliberately and repeatedly trying to hurt someone to make him/her or a group feel upset, angry, humiliated or afraid. Bullying is a behaviour used by a person or group to gain power over a less powerful person who has difficulty stopping the situation.
Descriptions:
- Bullying often begins when a child is ‘picked on’ by another child or by a group of children. The child being picked on is unable to stop the bullying from happening and lacks the support of others.
- The bullying will continue if the children doing the bullying have little or no sympathy for the child they are hurting, and especially if they are getting some pleasure from what they are doing and no one tries to stop them.
- Bullying can range from teasing to name-calling, from spreading nasty rumours about someone to threats of intimidation or actual physical aggression. What's considered gentle teasing by one child might appear as intimidation to another. There's often a fine line between some of these behaviours, and the effects of this bullying can vary.
