For boys, bullying frequently takes the form of both physical violence and the threat of violence. This can include intimidating looks, explicit verbal threats of violence, and acts of demonstrating physical supremacy such as shoving or tripping. This kind of bullying can involve more severe forms of physical violence such as punching or, in the worst cases, sexual assault.
Bullying involving physical violence is less common among girls. Girls are more vulnerable to attacks on their emotional well-being by the manipulation of social networks. This can take the form of a bully spreading false rumors about the person she is bullying to degrade her reputation. Further, the bully can use her social position to isolate the person she is bullying by implying that anyone who associates with the individual the bully is trying to isolate will suffer bullying as well.
While advancing Internet technologies have made it easier for people to stay in contact with one another through mediums such as social networking websites or instant messaging, it has also presented bullies with a new field to bully their targets outside of school. These can take the form of a bully sending the individual he is bullying a stream of threatening messages (through email, instant messages or social networking sites). Cyberbullying can also take the form of creating "fake" accounts, where the bully masquerades as the individual he is targeting, and sending inflammatory messages to individuals who think that these messages are coming from the bullied, when in reality they are coming from the bully. This can result in the bullied being shunned at school for actions he did not actually commit.
Whatever the form of bullying a child may be facing at school, there is a common treatment if you want to help the child deal with it: don't let him believe that it is his fault or that he in any way deserves it. Bullying is always unacceptable and always the bully's fault. Ensuring that the child knows that he does not deserve to be treated in such a way will help the child in resisting both the bullying itself and reducing the pain which such bullying can cause the bullied.