One in four youngsters face bullying
More than a quarter of Irish youngsters have suffered bullying, it was revealed today.
Despite making plenty of friends and being among the happiest in the world, a new study on their lifestyles found 26% have been mentally or physically abused by their peers.
The State of the Nation’s Children report found the Irish record on bullying was well below the World Health Organisation (WHO) average of 33.5%.
But Paul Gilligan, ISPCC chief executive, warned it might not be the whole story.
“The difficulty with it is identifying it. If 25% are identified with being bullied, it is likely that an awful lot more have been bullied but aren’t coming forward,” he said.
The report examines 48 different aspects of children’s lives with much of the data coming from previously published studies.
It found 90% of 10 to 17-year-olds have three or more friends ranking them first out of 35 WHO countries.
It said 89.5% of children aged 10 to 17 years are happy with their lives and while more boys reported being happy than girls, younger girls were the happiest of all.
The ISPCC’s Childline service received 5,283 calls in 2005 regarding bullying.
Mr Gilligan suggested the Office of the Minister for Children could work more closely with the Anti-Bullying Centre in Trinity College to combat the problem.
And he said it was not easy to admit it, but bullying had become an aspect of life for most children.
“Bullying is effectively part and parcel of most children’s school lives at some point or another. The question is how does the school deal with it. I think we still have a journey to make in understanding, coping and intervention,” he said.
