Health and Wellbeing in Childhood

Research within Australia and around the world underscores the short– and long–term negative effects of bullying on children’s socio-emotional health and wellbeing. While there has been a significant increase in the number of studies conducted with upper primary and secondary students, comparatively fewer studies have focused on the prior-to-school and early school contexts. The few studies that have examined the impact of bullying in the early years underscore its negative effects, with victims and bullies exhibiting psycho-social maladjustment and psychosomatic problems similar to outcomes reported with older samples (see Neilsen-Hewett, Bussey & Fitzpatrick, 2017). Bullying poses a significant risk to children’s socio-emotional wellbeing and mental health. A growing awareness of how bullying manifests itself in early peer contexts is therefore critical in the development of effective preventative anti-bullying initiatives. The goal of this chapter is to provide a synthesis of this research including an overview of the causes and correlates of bullying and its effects on children’s socio-emotional wellbeing.