Does Age Matter?
"Please be aware of everything you do and say while you enjoy your experience online. Don't rely on the so-called safety of being “anonymous” online. Keep in mind that online is “real life” too." (Itson, 2011)
Often times when we think about bullying, we think about school-aged children. But what happens when a bully gets older? Are there adult bullies? Anybody that has ever felt like they have been taken advantage of or that a group member has smothered other group member voices knows the answer to this. Take for example this letter written to a "Dear Abby" - type forum:
"Dear Irene,
I cannot believe I am dealing with a female, adult, bully at age 42---but here I am. She is a neighbor who lives behind my house. My husband and I had a brief friendship with her and her husband. It was brief because they were very over-bearing and demanding. They also put us in the middle of a falling out they had with our next door neighbor, with whom we got along with very well.
We just stepped back from them and they took it very personally. This happened over three years ago. She is very erratic in her moods and behavior so I think there is something wrong with this woman. Lately, she has been quite mean. We were at a cocktail party and she repeatedly called me a nasty name.
It was hurtful but also disturbing that I was being called nasty names at age 42. Question: Do I confront this woman about this behavior and if so, how or given that I think there is something mentally wrong with her, just let it go? She is not a "sit down, let's bury the hatchet" type person. I tried that a couple of years and thought we were "good" and then she got irrational and angry again.
She has a problem with maintaining friendships so there is a history here. My friends think her issue with me is straight up, intense jealousy. I don't know what it is but it's disturbing and emotionally exhausting.
Signed,
Val"
(Read the full article here)
Val was concerned because she was being bullied at the age of 42! Officer Westfield discussed this a bit during our interview. He stated that we typically don't learn how to deal with bullying as children and then it transfers to adults: "Adults don’t deal with it. Your parents didn’t deal with it. Your grandparents didn’t deal with it."
Another thing to consider is that often times victims of childhood bullying, carry the affects into adulthood. Here an adult talks about his issues with bullying that happened in his childhood, that he is still dealing with today.
"Dear Irene,
I cannot believe I am dealing with a female, adult, bully at age 42---but here I am. She is a neighbor who lives behind my house. My husband and I had a brief friendship with her and her husband. It was brief because they were very over-bearing and demanding. They also put us in the middle of a falling out they had with our next door neighbor, with whom we got along with very well.
We just stepped back from them and they took it very personally. This happened over three years ago. She is very erratic in her moods and behavior so I think there is something wrong with this woman. Lately, she has been quite mean. We were at a cocktail party and she repeatedly called me a nasty name.
It was hurtful but also disturbing that I was being called nasty names at age 42. Question: Do I confront this woman about this behavior and if so, how or given that I think there is something mentally wrong with her, just let it go? She is not a "sit down, let's bury the hatchet" type person. I tried that a couple of years and thought we were "good" and then she got irrational and angry again.
She has a problem with maintaining friendships so there is a history here. My friends think her issue with me is straight up, intense jealousy. I don't know what it is but it's disturbing and emotionally exhausting.
Signed,
Val"
(Read the full article here)
Val was concerned because she was being bullied at the age of 42! Officer Westfield discussed this a bit during our interview. He stated that we typically don't learn how to deal with bullying as children and then it transfers to adults: "Adults don’t deal with it. Your parents didn’t deal with it. Your grandparents didn’t deal with it."
Another thing to consider is that often times victims of childhood bullying, carry the affects into adulthood. Here an adult talks about his issues with bullying that happened in his childhood, that he is still dealing with today.
Do Adults get Cyberbullied?
We've discussed how bullying still occurs after people graduate from High School. It's easy to see that adults can be bullied face-to-face, but are they bullied online? This article discusses how an adult, who was a cyberbully herself, became a cybervictim on her own blog. Read the article here.