Kids Bullied in Elementary School More Likely to Self-Injure as Teens
There are no harmless forms of bullying, study warns.
Children who are bullied in elementary school are almost five times more likely to engage in self-harm by the time they are teenagers, according to a new study.
Based on their findings, the British researchers behind the study concluded that no form of bullying—from name-calling to physical abuse—should be viewed as a harmless rite of passage.
Doctors should routinely ask children if they have been the victim of a bully, the researchers said.
“The importance of this early intervention should not be understated,” study co-author Dieter Wolke, a professor at the University of Warwick, said in a school news release. “If we were able to eliminate bullying, while other exposures remained constant, there would be a potential to prevent 20 percent of all self-harm cases.”
The researchers examined information on nearly 5,000 children who participated in a study based at the