Children who are bullied in school may end up with more problems as adults, according to a new study released Wednesday.
The study published in Psychological Science found that bullying does not merely end in school because it also causes emotional, behavioral, financial and health problems that continue on in life.
The study claims that children who were both victims and perpetrators of bullying as schoolchildren are more susceptible to being diagnosed with serious illnesses or psychiatric disorders six times more those who were not.
"We cannot continue to dismiss bullying as a harmless, almost inevitable, part of growing up," Dieter Wolke, one of the study's authors, said in a press release. "We need to change this mindset and acknowledge this as a serious problem for both the individual and the country as a whole; the effects are long-lasting and significant."
Wolke, psychologist at the University of Warwick, said that victim-perpetrators are the most socially defeated because they usually try to fight back but are oftentimes unsuccessful.
Wolke further stated that these people typically enter adulthood and are faced with the same problems as their victims. "Bullies tended to engage in more risky behavior and to have criminal records."
Previous work by the Duke-Warwick team showed that bullies and bully-victims tended to come from families with harsh parenting, while victims tend to have what is known as overprotective "helicopter parents".
Wolke said all children need some conflict sometime but this should happen between friends where solutions can be met in the end.
