Teen Bullying: Signs, Types & A Parent’s Action Plan

Verbal bullying

This form of bullying uses words as weapons to humiliate, intimidate, or harm another person. While it leaves no visible scars, its impact on a teen’s mental health can be severe. It can look like:

• Constant name-calling: Using slurs or derogatory nicknames.
• Cruel teasing: Mocking their appearance, intelligence, or family.
• Threats: Making comments that cause fear of physical harm.
• Inappropriate comments: Making remarks of a sexual or bigoted nature.

Social or relational bullying

Often the hardest for adults to see, social bullying aims to destroy a teen’s sense of belonging and their relationships with others. It is a quiet, calculated form of cruelty. It often involves:

• Intentional exclusion: Deliberately leaving a teen out of groups or activities.
• Spreading rumors: Making up or sharing false stories to damage a reputation.
• Public humiliation: Pointing out flaws or embarrassing a teen in front of others.
• Friendship manipulation: Telling a teen that others don’t like them or turning friends against them.

Physical bullying

This is the most visible form of bullying, involving direct physical harm to a person or their property. It is an immediate threat to your teen’s safety and requires urgent action. Common examples include:

• Direct assault: Hitting, kicking, shoving, or tripping.
• Intimidation: Making threatening gestures or cornering someone.
• Damaging property: Stealing, breaking, or hiding a teen’s belongings.
• Unwanted physical contact: Any touching that is unwelcome or inappropriate.

Behavioral and social signs

To cope with a threat, teens often change their routines and pull away from the people and places they once loved. This withdrawal isn’t a choice; it’s a protective measure. Look for these changes:

• Avoiding school: A sudden resistance to going to school, frequent requests to stay home, or a new pattern of being “sick” on certain days is a classic red flag.
• Social isolation: They may suddenly lose friends or avoid social events they used to enjoy. The “sudden headache” that appears every Friday night when friends make plans is a common sign.
• Lost belongings: Frequently losing or damaging belongings like books, electronics, or clothes can be a sign of physical bullying or theft.
• A drop in grades: The stress of being bullied can make it nearly impossible to focus in class, leading to a noticeable decline in academic performance.

Increased risk of anxiety and depression

Constant bullying forces a teen’s brain and body into a state of high alert. They live with the chronic stress of waiting for the next threat, which can rewire their sense of safety and dramatically increase their risk for mental health conditions.

Teens who are bullied have nearly three times higher odds of depression compared to their peers. This isn’t just sadness; it’s a persistent weight that can make it feel impossible to get out of bed, focus on school, or find joy in anything.

Similarly, the constant fear can lead to anxiety disorders, where the world begins to feel like a fundamentally unsafe place.

Lasting damage to self-worth and confidence

Perhaps the most insidious effect of bullying is the way it can erode a teen’s core belief in their own value. When someone repeatedly tells you that you are worthless, it becomes incredibly difficult not to start believing it.

This experience can cause lasting psychological consequences that extend long into adulthood.

The bully’s voice can become your teen’s inner voice, creating a harsh internal critic that second-guesses their decisions, questions their friendships, and tells them they aren’t good enough.

• Listen without judgment: Start with an open-ended, gentle opening like, “I’m worried about you, and I want to help. Can you tell me what’s been going on?” Then, just listen. Resist the urge to interrupt, offer solutions, or ask rapid-fire questions. Your silence gives them space to talk.
• Validate their feelings: Validation isn’t about agreeing with every detail; it’s about confirming their emotional reality. Use phrases like, “That sounds incredibly painful,” or “It makes sense why you’d feel so alone in that.” This simple act of acknowledging their emotions without minimizing them is a powerful form of healing.
• Ensure their safety: End the conversation by making safety the priority. Ask directly, “Are you having any thoughts about hurting yourself?” Reassure them, “Thank you for telling me. We are going to get through this together, and my number one job is to make sure you are safe.”

In-the-moment strategies

These are practical techniques your teen can use to de-escalate a situation and protect their emotional well-being when face-to-face with a bully. You can help your teen practice by:

• Walking away without reacting: Teach them that walking away is a power move, not a weakness. It communicates, “You are not worth my time.” This requires emotional regulation and stress coping skills, which you can practice together through role-playing.
• Using short, neutral responses: A bully wants a reaction. Teach your teen to offer a boring, neutral response like “Okay” or “Whatever.” These brief, non-emotional responses often make the bully lose interest because the interaction isn’t rewarding.

Building a strong support system

Bullying thrives in isolation. Helping your teen build and maintain connections is one of the most powerful long-term strategies for resilience. You can encourage this by:

• Identifying trusted adults: Help your teen make a list of adults at school and home they can talk to. Reinforce that reaching out for support is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.
• Focusing on true friends: Remind them that having one or two authentic peer relationships is more valuable than being popular. A true friend provides the emotional support that acts as a buffer against the cruelty of others.

Common reasons why some teens bully others

It’s tempting to believe that teens who bully are a monolith of cruelty, but the motivations are often complex and varied. The behavior can stem from:

• A strategy for social power: Some teens use aggression as a tool to establish social dominance and maintain a high position on the peer ladder.
• A reaction to their own pain: For others, bullying is a response to their own social rejection, frustration, or feelings of powerlessness.
• A learned or repeated pattern: They may be repeating a cycle of abuse they have experienced themselves or witnessed at home.
• An underlying mental health challenge: Sometimes, aggression is a symptom of a condition like depression or a conduct disorder that requires professional attention.

Acknowledging parental guilt and burnout

When your child is in pain, it’s almost instinctual to ask, “What did I miss?” or “Why didn’t I protect them?” This guilt is a painful and common feeling for parents in this situation. While it comes from a place of deep love, guilt can sometimes lead to unhelpful responses like avoidance or self-blame.

It’s vital to recognize this guilt not as a sign of failure, but as a sign of your fierce love trying to make sense of a senseless situation.