I wanted to address this issue early since this issue affects children as young as 16. Workplace bullying is on the rise. It could be in the form of physical bullying by a co-worker or sexual harassment by a supervisor or any number of other ways. It has been estimated that 1 in every 3 workers, regardless of age or gender, will be bullied in the workplace in some form. The number one asset that anyone can have to help them deal with bullying at any age is “true” self-confidence.
As parents of future workers, we need to start as early as possible helping our children to develop a strong sense of “true” self-confidence. Believe it or not, two years old is not too early to start helping them. The self-confidence that you help them to develop now will benefit them through the rest of their lives.
“True” self-confidence is gained by accomplishing different tasks in an effort to become better and better. It could be from social pursuits or academic accomplishments or athletic endeavors or any number of other things. It could be when you learned how to ride a bicycle, or roller skate, or drive a car. You had to continue to practice to get better. This is what helps to build “true” self-confidence. The higher the level of this type of confidence, the harder it is for that child or adult to be bullied.
This is particularly important if your child has any type of disability or anything that tends to make them stand out as being different. They need all the help they can get as soon as they are old enough to understand what you are saying to them. Disabled children and adults face enormous challenges throughout their lives. I speak from experience on this issue. I have had to learn how to overcome all kinds of different biases growing up with Tourette’s, OCD, and ADHD. One of the biggest issues for me as an adult has been corporate politics. Sometimes an outstanding performance is not enough to help a disabled person keep their job.
The advantages of “true” self-confidence can be enormous. It can help your child to accomplish the following:
- Being more attentive
- Getting better grades in school
- Performing better in athletics
- Being more popular
- A higher level of responsibility
- More empathetic
- Helping to manage their fears
- Maintaining a more positive mental attitude
- Better able to withstand the pressures of peer pressure
- More pride in their physical appearance
As you can see, this is a long list of positives from having “true” self-confidence. These are items that can make a world of difference for any child. Particularly if they happened to be disabled in some manner.
What image comes to mind when you hear the words “workplace bully?” A ranting lunatic who yells and stomps and is king of the insults? Or is it someone who subtly disregards someone else’s work while smiling in their face?
Turns out, it can be both.
Either way, these are toxic employees who inflict harm on your staff and your company. Bullying itself may be considered workplace violence, due to psychological scars left on its victims. Left unchallenged, bullies may even trigger violence from the person being bullied or escalate their bad behavior into violence themselves.
You can spot and stop workplace bullying before you lose valuable team members or productivity suffers by being aware of the items that I have listed below.
A third of workers say they’ve been bullied at work, according to a survey.
Young workers, women, and LGBT employees report the highest rates of bullying. Survey respondents said these were the most common ways they were bullied:
- Falsely accused of making mistakes (45%)
- Comments ignored, dismissed or not acknowledged (42%)
- Criticized constantly by boss or co-workers (37%)
- Different standards or policies applied to them (34%)
- Subject of gossip (36%)
- Belittling comments made during meetings (28%)
- Someone didn’t perform certain duties, which negatively impacted their work (29%)
- Yelled at by boss in front of co-workers (26%)
- Excluded from projects or meetings (20%)
I believe that none of us want our children to have to endure this type of behavior at any point. This is why we must take steps now to help to prevent this from happening in their future.
