Early childhood knowledge and understanding of bullyingAn approach for early childhood prevention

Young children’s thinking about bullying: Personal, social-conventional and moral reasoning perspectives

“…Monks and Smith (2006) addressed this limitation by using a visual methodology: introducing children to a set of stick-figure cartoons depicting peer interactions, finding that young children aged 4-6 years and aged 8 years labelled all aggressive behaviours as bullying. Using the same visual methodology, Ey and Spears (2017) confirmed that young South Australian children aged 4-8 years could not distinguish between bullying or aggressiononly scenarios, also finding they failed to identify the three key elements associated specifically with bullying: power, repetition and intent to harm. Similarly, Helgeland and Lund (2016) reported that 4-5-year-old children described bullying as only 'doing or saying something mean' and did not articulate the key components which identify bullying behaviour (p. 1).…”

Writing letters to characters in bullying-themed stories: An approach to educating about bullying in early childhood

“…Since young children do not clearly understand bullying in general (Hegland & Lund, 2016) and some young victims may not even recognize that they are being bullied (Ey & Spears, 2017; Monks & Smith, 2006), it is crucial to help young children prepare themselves by having an accurate understanding of and attitude towards bullying. In this study, reading and discussing bullying-themed stories helped children build a solid foundation of understanding the victims, bullies and bystanders.…”

“…The participating children discussed and identified how to stand up for themselves as well as how to deal with the issues in constructive ways, such as expressing their feelings and speaking in a confident voice (Levine & Tamburrino, 2014), and reporting or asking for help from adults (Davis & Nixon, 2011; Rigby & Johnson, 2016). While it is of importance for children always to seek help from an adult when they feel unsafe, some children might hesitate to do this because young children are confused about snitching or telling on somebody else, which they have been told not to do (Ey & Spears, 2017). Thus, teachers should remind children of the difference between bullying and conflict, and explain the necessity of reporting bullying, which helps them to be safe and is different from tattling.…”

“…Bullying is an increasing international concern, not only among school-aged children but also among preschoolers and kindergarten children (Dijk et al, 2017; Hegland & Lund, 2016). There have been no studies inclusive of children under the age of nine on the prevalence of bullying in early childhood internationally (Ey & Spearks, 2017). Some small-scale studies showed that 22.6% of children aged five to seven are subjected to bullying or peer abuse in the United States (for example, Alsaker & Na¨gele, 2008).…”

“…However, in reality, in spite of the risk and negative influence on young children, research shows that adults tend to overlook and/or underestimate bullying in early childhood settings (Hegland & Lund, 2016; Vlachou et al, 2016). Moreover, not only adults but also young children do not recognize and understand what bullying means and what effects bullying has on individuals (Ey & Spears, 2017; Hegland & Lund, 2016). All causes of bullying should be addressed in the early years during preschool and elementary school.…”