Bullying – Dyslexia & Other Learning Difficulties

Dyslexia & Bullying

“Stamp out Bullying Now!”

Many students with Dyslexia and other Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs) suffer from bullying because some may see their peers as ‘different’ and usually take longer to do things like reading, spelling etc.  We must stamp out bullying!

I know of someone with a six-year-old boy, and when the children did their writing, they had to keep going up to the teacher’s desk to ask for a word to be spelt out; the child would write about ten words and spent the entire 20-minute session stood in the queue at the teacher’s desk.  Isn’t that ridiculous, and the other children would pick on him because he was in the line practically all the time, and the teacher would make remarks like, ‘not you again?  ‘Can’t you spell anything?

This was asking for problems as if the child didn’t have enough already.  The other children soon picked up on this, and they joined in too.  Some teachers need to re-think this method of ‘teaching’.

Nobody, regardless of age, should have to put up with being bullied.

Treat people as you expect to be treated!

Respect each other and

“Stamp out Bullying Now!”

We all know how traumatic bullying can be, don’t we?

Many of you know just how traumatic it can be when your children are being bullied at school; some of us will have been bullied ourselves when we were younger.  I am not talking about the one-off, isolated case (although this is not very nice), but children are being bullied regularly.  Whilst many parents may have tried to deal with the situation when it arose, it would appear that dealing with the problem at the time is not the end.

There have been many studies on bullying, but the following research is the first to examine how bullying affects students in mid-life.  King’s College London study analysed over 7,000 cases of children born in 1958.  The results showed that many men and women who had been bullied at school were at higher risk of developing:

Weight-related issues, i.e.,

• Overweight
• Obesity

Mental health problems, i.e.,

• Such as Depression
• Alcoholism
• Higher blood inflammation leads to
  Type-2 Diabetes
• A higher risk of Strokes and
• Cardiovascular (heart) disease.

Stories in the Media

In many cases in the media over the last few years, we have often heard schools have thought it best to move the bullied student out of the situation.  This has outraged many parents because their child who has done nothing wrong is moved, and the bully is not punished.  It doesn’t seem fair, and it would appear that schools find this easiest.  All schools have programmes to help prevent bullying behaviours, but this would often be at the cost of neglecting the children’s misery.

This is the first time; we have proof that early intervention can help stop these problems later in life.

Who would have thought that bullying at school could mean you were at higher risk of severe health issues?

We must “Stamp out Bullying Now”!

Help & Support – Bullying

Are you being Bullied?  Do you know someone who is?

Several excellent websites can offer – free, confidential help for young people under 25.  Get non-judgemental advice and support.

Kidscape
Help & support at: Kidscape
Our mission is to provide children, families, carers and professionals with advice, training and practical tools to prevent bullying and protect young lives.

http://www.kidscape.org.uk

NSPCC
Are you worried about a child?  Contact our trained helpline counsellors for 24/7 help, advice and support.
NSPCC

• Is your child being bullied?
• How do you deal with bullying?
• How do you talk to children about bullying?

Thomson’s informative guide is an excellent book and will give you much help and advice.

17-year-old takes his own life
We must ‘Stamp out Bullying Now!’

Another youngster takes his own life after cyberbullying.

Why do these cowards find it easier to bully someone online and probably someone they don’t even know?

Cowards – I hope they are happy now!

A priest told his mourners that a 17-year-old GAA player from County Tyrone was taken “advantage of and exploited” before taking his life over cyberbullying.

We must ‘Stamp out Bullying Now!’

Full Research Paper & Contact details:
Takizawa, R et al. (2015) ‘Bullying victimization in childhood predicts inflammation and obesity at mid-life: a five-decade birth cohort study’ Psychological Medicine doi:10.1017/S0033291715000653
For further media information, please get in touch with Jack Stonebridge, Press Officer, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London jack.stonebridge@kcl.ac.uk/
For further information about King’s, visit our ‘King’s in Brief’ page.