Quarter of bullied children 'go on to bully other kids'

Nearly a quarter of 12 to 20-year-olds who've been bullied go on to bully other children and teenagers.

The findings also suggest that more than twice as many boys (66%) as girls (31%) bully. Half of all kids and teenagers say they've been bullied at some point in the past year.

That's according to a survey by anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label.

It spoke with with 8,850 people aged between 12 and 20.

Around a third of people who admitted bullying others said they rarely or very rarely spent time with their parents.

For help and advice on bullying, visit BBC Advice.

Almost the same number said they had arguments every day at home.

The findings suggest people who bully others are more likely to have suffered a traumatic event, such as their parents splitting up or a major family fall-out.

Tyler Bonner, 22, from Chichester, has told Newsbeat that he started bullying other children while at school because he was unhappy at home.

"When I was about six, my mum passed away and that caused a lot of friction in the family home, just in terms of my behaviour and how I reacted to the whole situation.

"I was very angry with the world and would ask myself, 'Why is this happening to me?'

"Because I didn't know how to ask for help and I was a mess, I would then go into school and think, 'OK. Because my life's rubbish, that means I need to make sure everyone knows that my life is rubbish.'

"So I then passed that on to other people. It would never become physical. It was only ever verbal and I'd find someone who was different. So someone who was tall, short, fat, thin. It could be anything but I made their life a misery.

"It's not something that I'm proud of obviously."

The survey also found 44% of 12 to 20-year-olds who've been bullied suffer depression, 33% have suicidal thoughts and 31% go on to self-harm.

Ditch the Label founder and CEO Liam Hackett said bullying often has a huge impact on the health, welfare and future prospects of millions of children and teenagers.

Tyler says he bullied other children between years seven and nine at school but eventually realised he had to stop being an idiot and get on with his GCSEs.

He says if you're a bully, or being bullied, you need to ask for help.

"It's not big, it's not clever," he's told Newsbeat. "There's no point making other people's lives a misery just because you don't know how to ask for help or you don't know what's going on.

"You may find you end up causing problems for those people later in life.

"They may think they can't achieve their dreams or they can't see where they want to be in life because of what you said or did to them."

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