An Important Part in Child Development: Bullying and Preschool Bullying: Prevention Techniques and an Interview

An Important Part in Child Development: Bullying and Preschool Bullying: Prevention Techniques and an Interview 

    Abstract

One of the most important studied segments of  scholary work is the link between bullying among children and it’s position in child development framework. Further more, most common types of bullying among children and especially in preschool-age-children. Within this paper, it is emphasized the definition, types, it’s prevalence and prevention techniques both in older and especially for preschool age children.  Prevention programs and techniques like Be-Prox,  Seeds of Empathy, Roots of Empathy, Incredible Years are presented. There are two newly used prevention techniques which used in Turkey presented; Emotions Event and Morning Session. Their procedure and possible effects are investigated. An interview is made with a kindergarten teacher for further observational information within the framework and to assess the new techniques and its’ effectiveness. 

Introduction

There is no question that bullying is a very old phenomenon among children in general. We all experienced bullying the days at school, even the person has never victimized by another has seen a school mate was bullied.  It has seen within the activities of daycare, preschool, home care groups, play groups and in kindergarten classrooms. Have you ever seen one of your classmates crying because of another powerful one’s verbal attack? Have you ever heard a composed one has chanced the classroom he or she was not able to defend himself against a group of students?

Bullying behaviours might also emerge in early childhood. Children take part in bullying even at the age of three. Initially, bullying can also traced back in early childhood times especially within the activities of daycare, preschool, home care groups, play groups and in kindergarten classrooms. However, early childhood bullying tendencies can also be prevented and stopped effectively by educators in the early childhood settings. It can also boost and maintain the development of positive social interactions in each environment that a child enters in. Nevertheless, early childhood educators play crucial role in determining whether bullying develops and escalates or whether it is stopped and prevented. Educators and teachers may underestimate bullying in early childhood settings times. Teachers might think that young children are naive enough and innocent that the would not take part in bullying activities. The also think that such children would not deliver an abusive or harming behaviors to the others. Teachers may ignore such bullying behaviors by negligence saying that ‘Kids will always be kids’. When children are not observed, such bullying behaviors cannot be detected by the teachers due to inadequate supervision. Thus, they may fail to notice early-bullying symptoms which also might result in bullying itself. However, when teachers notice the symptoms of bullying, they take it very seriously and try to deal with it effectively. On the other hand, if bullying is not stopped or dealt with at early stages, such children will keep bullying others and once they get older, they will have a tendency to bully others again. In addition to that, the victims of bullying will keep suffering from this situation. Victimization during the early childhood as well as early adolescence can occur when peers play which can reinforce the aggressor. In this case, failing to intervene and stop victimization and affiliating with such children that bully can play a promoting role.  In reality, one of the most important things in prevention of bullying is to prevent its dissemination. Bullying can spread very quickly when other children see opportunities to engage. If bullying is not prevented, then it is highly possible that it will evolve and continue during adolescence and even during adulthood. It also might result in abusive teen dating relationships as well as domestic violence and other criminal activities. Yet, the most essential and paramount thing is that bullying is preventable. 

Literature Review

Definition of Bullying

We can define bullying as an aggressive behavior that usually addresses so called the ‘victim’  who can not easily defend him or herself (Olweus,1999).  The victim is who experiences verbal, behavioral, physical or relational attacks and also insecurity and also many kinds of psychological problems like depression and anxiety (for meta-analyses, see Card, 2003; Hawker & Boulton, 2003). 

Studies has shown that if a child experiences the victim position for so long, the victims’  later life could be affected  in the forms of  low self-esteem, anxiety or even difficulty to trusting other people. (Isaacs, Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2008; Olweus, 1994). After children continuously started to attend preschool or school, they might show aggressive behaviors that targets other children in the classrooms and this can show stability over time. (e.g. Ladd & Burgess, 1999) 

Types Of Bullying

When it comes to types of bullying, there are five main types of bullying such as verbal, emotional, physical, relational bullying and sexual harassment  are taken into consideration. As the following explains, each of these is distinct, but all may be perpetuated by the same bully and aimed at the same target (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005). 

When we talk about verbal bullying, it is usually repeated name-calling or teasing which is more common than physical bullying. Verbal aggression directed at another child was recorded twice as often as physical aggression (Tapper & Boulton, 2005). Physical bullying shows itself as kicking,hitting,beating another. Emotional bullying shows itself as mostly excluding one from the group, treating or intimidation. Relational bullying  (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995) which is more popular among girls ( Crick et al., 2006) and it is hurtful especially at puberty because until that time children are able to develop more complex cognitive abilities which that could be applied in social skills( Underwood, 2003; Xie, Swift, Cairns, & Cairns, 2002). Relational bullying could be seen as excluding one from games or continuously humiliating gossips around class and is also called as social bullying. According to studies, the widest form of bullying is the bad nicknaming. The most frequent forms are pushing, gossiping, threatening, exclusion or manipulation of friend relations. While girls use more indirect or relational methods, males use direct physical aggression.

Prevalence of Bullying 

Researchers have made great improvements identifying and assessing bullying worldwide. It has proved that every child around the world has experience of bullying as bully, victim or observer (Benbenishty & Astor, 2005; Dake, Price, Telljohann, & Funk, 2004). However it is not always possible to find universal level of bullying since the education systems, policies and practices shows differences country by country. Teachers, adults and outsiders also report some data, but unfortunately they might miss  some occasions because ‘the observer were not as unobtrusive as assumed’  (Pellegrini, 2001b, p. 139). 

We should also take age, gender, sex,ethnicity,and social class into consideration when it comes to measure the prevalence of bullying and these and many other facts what makes it hard to measure and to make comparison from one place to another. In some cultures the definition of bully is different, the meanings are different  so we can easily say that there is a lack of common operational  difference (Benbenishty & Astor, 2003, p. 319). In a research made by Olweus it was said that among primary school students around %12  were victims and %8 self-acknowledged bullies (Olweus, 1993).  The number of research relating to a complex problem such as bullying. The first systematic studies in bullying in children started in Scandinavian countries in the seventy. In the end of eighty and in the beginning of nineties. It began to attract attention of media and researchers in Japan, England, Holland, Canada, the USA and Australia (Olweus, 1995). The basic difficulty of researches about the bullying is the description, measurement and even naming of this phenomena. A result of various results in this field that minimum 10% of students in various countries of the world have experienced bullying as the bully or the victim (Besag, 1995). Olweus ( 1995:15), found out that 15% of students were involved in bullying as (10% victim, 5% bully) and 5% of them were involved in bullying seriously for a few years. In the study conducted by White in Japan, it was revealed out that 40% of students had experiences as the bully or the victim. It is thought that this problem is experienced more in the USA than the other countries. In 1985, in a report published in Wall Street Journal, it was stated that 58% of students from a number of age groups had the experiences of bullying as the bully or victim. It was found out in a study of Eliot (1992) interviewing with 4000 students in 1986 about abuse that 38% of them had the experience of bullying qualified as “scarcy” by the students. It is found out that 2% of girls and 8% of boys experience it chronically in their daily lives among the students being the sample of this study. 30% of parents are worried about bullying behaviours and only 4% of them have ideas about how they can help their children. In the study of Olweus, it was found out that 65% of secondary and high school students and half of primary school students could not mention about bullying to their parents ( Olweus, 1995:13-30). Again in the study of Eliot (1992:9-12) 60% of students sharing this problem with their teachers of primary education and 40% of elder students said that teachers were not interested in this issue and they did not help to reduce the problem. 

Research revealed that there is a correlation between parenting styles and peer victimization in terms of inconsistent, punitive, hostile and abusive parenting, high level of negative expressiveness, family conflicts and violence (Burk et al. 2008; Mohr 2006; Schwartz et al. 1997). It was proven that  having mostly negative relationship with siblings has an effect on performing the same aggressive behaviors at school (Berndt & Bulleit 1985), in the social context as well. And conversely, the positive reports from children with siblings revealed a connection with being in the victim position (Bowers et al., 1992) 

Gender and age differences

Researches has shown that boys are more likely to  bully others when compared to girls and this findings are consistent across grade level, as well as across many countries and cultural groups. (2,3,4) And boys are also more tend to engage in physical forms of bullying and sexual harassment. Also, boys and girls are tend to experience differences in being victim as well but, however girls are reported as victims of bully more than boys in the majority of 40 countries surveyed but this was inconsistent with age.According to findings of researchers such as Olweus (1995), Lowenstein (1992) , Elliot (1992), Roland(1989), males are involved in bullying actions more frequently than female in the rate of two thirds. While bully boys exercise more physical violence or threaten, the girls use the indirect ways such as gossping, mocking, social exclusion. Even the boys display bullying actions against boys and girls from various classes, girls elect girls from their own classes or peers as the victim. According to Olweus (1995) and Roland (1989), the reason of choice of the girls is that they use the method of social exclusion most. In previous studies, researchers revealed that girls are more likely to involve in relational aggression(Ostrov et al. 2004; Crick et al. 1999) when compared to involving in physical aggression and girls also tend to display it  more to female peers than male peers. Being consistent to these findings, boys are choosing the way to show their anger in a physical dimension more to their male peers than girls(Maccoby 1998; Ostrov et al. 2004; Ostrov and Keating 2004; Pellegrini and Long 2003). 

Preschool Bullying

Considering the literature about bullying, the number of studies carried out on pre-school children is very little. Since oral expression and reading and writing skills of pre-school and primary school children is not sufficient, it is difficult to determine bullying behaviors of this period. The studies made in Norway, United States and in Switzerland has shown that victimization in early childhood has extremely stressful effect on young children. (Alsaker, 1993a,1993b,; Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996,; Alsaker, 2003; Alsaker and Valkanover, 2001). If a child experiences the victim status over a long period of time, it could elicit worthlessness, feeling of shame, negative self evaluations, negative expectations for peer relationships in the future and it might be seen even long after the bullying action has stopped (Alsaker and Olweus, 2002; Olweus, 1991). This is why the teachers in preschools should be concerned more about the phenomenon. it is aimed to eliminate possible negative effects of bullying as being more vulnerable to victimization through prevention. However, studies revealed that most victims are not victimized over a long period of time instead, they experience victimization over a brief periods of time. (Kochenderfer and Ladd 1997; Monks et al. 2002). 

Preschool bullies and victims & Differences

Since our social and cognitive abilities grow to be more complex by aging, it is not easy for a preschool children to regulate their emotions and behaviors in social interactions (Cummings et al. 1989). Because of such changes in structure, preschool children may show tendency to direct aggressive behaviors toward a particular children instead of being more discriminative (Hanish et al. 2005). If you ever witness a preschool children aggression, you would see that it is relatively simple and honest and very easy to understand. Studies also revealed that relational aggression is the common type of aggression in preschool age (Crick et al. 1999). 

Gender shows differences in preschool age as it shows in older ages. In a study, female preschool bullies are revealed as not acceptable as male bullies. In other words, female bullies are not externalized totally but, more isolated and harder to find a peer to play when compared to male bullies (Perren and Alsaker 2006).  Such difference was found between bully-victims and bullies. A bully-victim differs from a bully in a way to use the aggression. It means, bully-victims are not showing aggression to reach a specific goal. Instead, they use the aggression in a reactive way (Pellegrini 1998). Bully-victims are tend to be more anxious, physically reactive and irritating other children (Griffin and Gross 2004) thus, bully-victims more tend to be rejected by peers (Perren and Alsaker 2006). 

How do we measure pre-school bullying?

The reason of not carrying out the studies on pre-school students is that these studies are based on questionnaire most.  When the research is aimed older children other than preschool children, typical methods are based on self ,peer and teacher-report questionnaire. It was found that children in preschool age were not able to define or describe children who were victimized if  any one asks straightly (Alsaker 1993). But the same technique to assess victimization is not that useful in kindergartens as it is in older age groups. (Alsakser and Valkanover 2001; Kochenderfer and Ladd 1996). It resulted in using other methods for bullying. One of these methods is the direct observation while playing. Observing the children while playing, is a natural key to reveal social sufficiency and social disputes of children. Playing studies are very beneficial considered them within the scope and peer communication, inter-friend competition, recognition and exclusion and close relations occur within this scope (Leff, Tracy&Power,2004).  Research on bullying in kindergarten is still new. Nevertheless, all studies conducted in different countries have demonstrated that bullying occurs at approximately the same rate in kindergarten as in elementary school (Alsaker and Nagele, 2008: Stassen Berger, 2007).

Prevention Programs in Preschool Children

Kindergarten is the first different stabile social environment beyond the home. Children face such difficulties in their social interactions with peers and thanks to professionals, it is possible to detect and assess it. It is possible to eliminate the negative impact of such problems by early identification  and elimination. However, there is only one anti-bullying program for preschool children that is tested its reliability and created especially for kindergarten students.. It is the Bernese Program( The Be-Prox). There are some other techniques which targets social emotional competencies ; The Incredible Years, Fast Track, Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, Roots of Empathy. 

Bernese Programme 

This program is based on well known principles that used in the school settings against bullying and victimization in kindergarten and elementary schools  (e.g. Olweus, 1993; Sharp and Smith, 1993). The positive side of the program is to be flexible and adaptable to numerous several conditions. It needs to be encountered by teachers and focuses on improving teachers’ motivation to prevent victimization ( Alsaker, 2003). The program has eight different meeting times that are corresponding  to eight specific topic. The teachers are asked to perform the tasks discussed during the meetings. The teachers was asked to implement these tasks in between of two meetings. Topics focus are followed as; first meeting; sensitization, second meeting; sensitization of the children and behavior code, third meeting: making use of the behavior code, fourth meeting: the non-involved children, fifth meeting;body awareness and concrete goals, sixth meeting; consolidation through own prevention goals, seventh meeting; ‘open’ and the eighth meeting; feedback and further use of the program. The program resulted in significant decrease in physical and indirect victimization in the intervention group conversely, there was an increase in bullying and victimization in the control group (Alsaker). 

Incredible Years 

It is proven that the program is effective in reducing childrens’ aggressive behaviors both in family and school settings and also aims at increasing social competence skills of children (Webster-Stratton et al. 2001, 2004, 2008). The program aims to develop more positive relationship with children as well as partnering with parents, preventing and reducing inappropriate behavior and teaching socio-emotional skills. There are role plays, discussions and trainings that guides student the newly learned skills to apply daily life situations. 

Roots of Empathy (Gordon 2001, 2005) 

This program is another effectiveness proven anti-bullying program that aims to decrease the level of in negative behaviors and aggression and increasing empathy. (Schonert-Reichl 2005; Schonert-Reichl et al. 2001). It is possible to use this program from the age of kindergarten and even in the older ages as 12-13. 

Seeds of Empathy

This program gave rise to the development of the Roots of Empathy because, Seeds of Empathy was designed to use with children at age 3 to 5. The program aimed to give preschoolers better capacity to gain more accurate and deep intuitive understanding of how others feel and to have more advanced at sensing social responsibility for each other. 

Morning Session and Emotions Event 

This technique is applied as prevention of bullying technique among preschoolers in Turkey. The technique is planned to implement once-a-week in control of a psychological councilor and co-operation of the classroom teacher. The program is well-matched with another technique called Emotions Event. Emotions event firstly aims to teach children types and names of emotions and secondly speak about their feelings or emotions. 

Procedure: Firstly, the teacher asks children to make a circle and everyone sits down on the ground. In first week of the event, teacher teaches children names of the main emotions such as anger,happiness, sadness, guilt/shame, fear, joy, disgust, surprise, interest etc. by giving  illustrative examples  within everyday life. Teacher introduces meanings of those emotions and asks some basic illustrative  questions to keep childrens' attention on the subject. In the second week the teacher aims to clarify the understanding of emotions and also tries to guide children toward the appropriate ways of expressing those emotions. This procedure applied for two weeks before so called morning technique as a base. 

The morning session technique aims to teach children express themselves loudly with no fear of failure and without feeling of shame/guilt. It stresses the importance of our emotions as well as other friends emotions, importance of being a kind person, positive sides and benefits of it etc. The technique is used to prevent bullying later in life thus, it contains some messages like how to be a good friend and how to show kindness to others. The session aims to encourage each child to speak up infront of the classmates. The teacher and psychological counselor works in collaboration, and they try to use positive reinforcement by greeting each child after they speak.

Procedure: Firstly, the teacher asks children to make a circle and everyone sits down on the ground. Than asks the first child : ‘is there anything or anyone that made you feel sad/upset this week?’ If the answer is yes the next step is to learn ‘’who’’  did  ‘’what’’. And then the teacher continues by asking ‘’how did you feel in this case?’’ and turns to class  and says ‘’people should not be happy by making friends feel bad. Because, if my friend is sad, i am sad also. Every one agrees with me..??’’ Turns to named kid and asks, ‘’how a good friend should have behave in this situation?’’ by aiming to guide them behave appropriately in their social interactions in the future. 

General results of the technique

After the morning session teachers usually have one or two names that are repeated by children. Then kindergarten’s teacher and the Psychological counselor sets a meeting to understand the labeled student’s situation; if the child is enjoying the bullying action for some reason or, if there is any other  specific psychological problem going on with the child. In some cases children are tend to act in such ways if there is domestic violence or abuse that targets to child or violence between parents. In some cases, the child could have neurotic or psychotic problems that are going on. In the case of psychological problems, the role of the counselor is to contact the family, set a meeting and talk about the problem. In such cases the counselor guides family to go firstly, to a psychologist and secondly to a psychiatrist if needed. Some children only likes to dominate other children, some of them goes to psychiatrist and gets medicated. In Some  cases, teacher and the counselor identifies a child that is not aiming to create a group and bully another. Instead, the child behaves in inappropriate way to anyone that stands against the high-handed child’s request. 

An Interview in  Kindergarten 

This interview made by Ekin Sökmen with Bahriye Karaaslan who works as the main responsible kindergarten teacher at Aydın Mimar Sinan Kindergarten, Turkey. She is responsible for 4 year old children which are born in the first 6 months of their age group. The age distinction occurs from cognitive differences that are really important in respect of the children within these age group. We investigated this interview to get more information about how common is bullying among these age, what kind of aggressions are common,  what are the determinative features of the domain, what the teachers are able to do regarding to difficulties, what are the limitations and possible prevention techniques that could be used in any country in the world.  The interview was recorded and transmitted to written version and all permits are obtained.

How common is aggression among children?

-Actually, it is not very common situation. We do not experience it everyday among those children. But, however there are some exceptions. Sometimes, only one or two particular child try to bully their friends for some reason. It usually emerges when a particular child assumes the leadership qualities over the others. Then, so called the leader tries to dominate the weaker link among the group. 

What kind of aggression could you name that is very common among children and do you observe any age differences among children? By the way, why did you create two different classes for the same aged children?

-The reason we differentiate the age groups in this way is already to prevent this kind of problems. However,  we still can see this kind of problems even in the same age group and also on the other classes within different ages. Usually, within the same age group, the older ones are the dominators. We observe that as the age increases, the probability of bullying increases so, it is directly proportional with age since their cognitive abilities grows better with aging that brings better social competence ability and commination skills. 

 The bullying behavior usually emerges by not sharing toys,  when a child do not want to one get into the game, pushing someone to be first in queue,  or it could be unpleasant nicknaming.  Also, so called the leader tries to create its own group and  orients the group by excluding some others from the group. A leader student carries out and manages this group. She or he puts the rules, names the game and orders off someone who she does not want to involve game. In other words, the most popular child tries to dominate others. As the leader creates the backdrop, other children takes the chance to create gossips about some particular children by underestimating the victim.Sometimes, they talk about the other one loudly in an inappropriate way which leads the bullied children to feel weak among others. This is what we always try to avoid because of bad consequences later in life. For instance, they could take so called the victims’ play dough at the play dough time and not letting her to play with it by claiming that she is not able to play with it nicely because she goofs it up. Then the some others which feels they are  on the same side or gang, involves the argument mostly in offensive way. There are some good natured children as well, and we observe them as a a mediator in such situations. If the teacher is not around for one or two minutes by any chance, it could even continue by hurting each other and  end by making cry the victim loudly. Children at age four are very easy to cry.  At this point we are, as teachers trying to teach the appropriate way to play with others even if we do not like their work, we are doing that by aiming to teach the way how we should express out feelings without hurting each other. Sometimes, they might be rude with others by hitting or physically hurting another. This is what we consider as bullying usually.

Is there any program which is running in your school that is against bullying (or enhancing social skills) and What are the reactions of yours when you face kind of aggression or bullying behaviors?

-If yes, what is it about? How does it work? Could you observe significant differences by applying programs? 

Our main source is observation for preventing bullying but also, morning sessions are really effective as well. 

For prevention, deprivation is a well working method. The method aims to debar the child from the environment for a short period of time by telling the child that the action which he or she has just done to other, was not nice and is not acceptable by any chance. We let the child to think of the wrong action by ensuring the bully move away from his/her comfortable zone. There is a thinking corner in the class room and when we meet such situation, we send the student to this corner which she/he cannot continue the activity. We  intend to make the bully stay there long enough and make him/her question ‘why am i out of the game?’. Then, we speak with student about his/her negative attitude. Besides,  the family meetings are carried out. Our main aim is finding out negative situations as early as possible. So, we try to realize the point that the bullying begins in this age group and take precautions. When the family is caring  and helping, bullying action does not continue. 

Do having a sibling have an effect on bullying behavior? 

I can explain it in a way that if the child has sibling and if the child is bullied continuously by the sibling, there is a less opportunity for victims to escape. Because, the victim perceives the bulling action as something usual, the victim is less likely to defend him/herself in some cases. Or it could be the opposite, the child with no sibling might be more spoiled because if he or she is the only one, whatever he does is okay, even the inappropriate behaviors.

Do gender show variety? 

I could observe some differences between boys and girls bully ways. Boys tend to be physically aggressive when bullying. They hit or push the friend. I observed it as boys bully both boys and girls but it is not the same for girls. Girls usually target girls for some reason. It is much easier to identify a boy bully over a girl bully since the boys express themselves by threatening someone else. I rarely observe that a girl is physically attacking another girl. For instance, we have a student named as Sanem and this child is the girl leader, the most popular girl  in their group. Once, she stoled a toy of another and claimed as Merve stole it by putting the toy the victims backpack. She had no idea that she was watched by me so we could handle the situation easily. We didn’t say anything to Merve about the toy. Instead, I talked to Sanem and let her know that i saw what she did. I told her the importance of her action such as by giving examples of consequences of the action. I reminded her the emotions event and negative feelings and the way to be a good friend. Before we made the speech ,i sent Sanem to the thinking corner and told her everything after the punishment. I never witnessed  such an action after that by Sanem again. 

Are there any psychological help? 

Yes, we have a school psychological counselor and we always work in collaboration. When required, the school counselor and teacher sets a meeting with family and direct to firstly a psychologist and a psychiatrist if needed. Generally, families ask that if they should go to the professional or not. Families attach importance to psychological situations. 

Do you have children with special needs and their roles in aggression?

We have four students who have special needs. We also have a special education teacher in the school. Her interest in those students and they participate to others in certain activities and we do not have any problem with them. 

 How hard or easy to communicate with parents of aggressive kids / parent of the victims? 

It is not difficult since the family is also concerned about their child. However, it could be hard to communicate with parents in some cases. The reason is, parents usually have other responsibilities such as their jobs etc. If the child comes to school by school bus, it gets even harder to catch the parent. When we face with such difficulties firstly, we try to sort out the problem within the school, but if we realize that we are not able to fix it without familys’ cooperation, we have to call and inform them continuously to stress the importance of their child’s inappropriate behavior and their roles as a family. Some parents need psychological support as well. The schools’ psychological counselor can advise a family counselor after family meetings,

What is the role of the environment( other children in the classroom, people at home and their reaction about that)?

It is important. So, we are in collaboration in all situations. For instance, if the family reinforces the child positively over his/her inappropriate behaviors by laughing at it as the behavior is fun, the child is more likely to develop these kind of behaviors. It usually happens in one-child-families. Or, if the child experiences violence at home, there is a direct proportion that the child would take such behaviors as normal and more likely to adopt or mimic these behaviors. It is really obvious for us to point which child has experienced violence or abuse within family. These children are usually tend to show more aggressive behaviors since they grow up in such environment. We aim to detect these children and contact with their family members and direct them to a professional to treat the unwanted outcomes as much as possible. 

Discussion

There has been significant amount of research on bullying both in older age children and preschool age children. Furthermore, aggression topic has been investigated in ways of direct and indirect. However, there are not many nutritive research that emphasizes the process of bullying among preschool children and prevention programs. It is important for researchers to identify the universal definition of bullying across cultures and language both for teachers and professionals and develop effective prevalence programs to apply preschool children since its significant effects provokes negatively the general psychological development of children. 

In addition, we performed an interview with a professional within this field, to have some  more observational insight. There are 2 newly used prevention techniques that needs to be better develop in further research. 

Secondly, researchers should pay more attention of the socio cognitive factors that correlates with the framework. There should be more attention on prevention programs among preschool age children since its importance is very clear later in child development. 

To sum it up, there is a clear evidence on the side effects of bully/victim topic however little is known its prevalence and prevention during preschool years. More scientific data would make significant changes over life. It is required to have more qualitative and quantitative data regarding the framework. 

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