We all remember the wonderful Soviet film “Scarecrow” about the girl Lena Bessoltseva, who became a victim of aggression and psychological pressure from her classmates. Fans of American cinema may recall on this topic the film “Carrie” based on the novel by Stephen King, where the main character, due to her extraordinary appearance and psychological characteristics, becomes the object of bullying and cruel jokes from her peers.
Worried that your child is being bullied at school? Prove the fact of bullying and help your child by using the Sound Around function in the “Where are my kids” application, downloading it from the AppStore or GooglePlay.
All this is about bullying at school - bullying, intimidation, bullying. The word is new, the phenomenon is old. According to UN data from 2006, every tenth schoolchild in the world is exposed to violence at school, and this figure is growing every year. In the media, we are increasingly seeing frightening headlines: “teenagers posted a video online of beating a classmate,” “a girl committed suicide due to bullying at school.”
The problem of bullying is modern and acutely social. You can’t turn a blind eye to it, because children’s cruelty sometimes goes beyond all acceptable limits.
This article is for parents, children, teachers, for those who have had to deal with bullying at school and for those who want to protect their child from this horrific phenomenon of our time.
Definition of bullying
The concept is derived from the English word “bullying”, translated as “bullying”.
Bullying
- deliberate persecution of the victim, one of the members of the team by others.
Characteristic signs of bullying are:
- The forces of the aggressor and the persecuted are clearly unequal. The victim is unable to defend himself due to physical weakness or other reasons. If the forces of the parties are equivalent, then we should talk about a conflict, but not about bullying.
- Violence against the victim of bullying is carried out on a regular basis, constantly. A one-time insult cannot be considered bullying, it is just an insult. The buller oppresses his victim every day, or whenever there is such an opportunity.
- The use of violence and bullying causes an extremely negative psychological reaction in the victim.
The main goal of a bully (aggressor) is to hide his own inferiority. Bullying has nothing to do with leadership or management of activities. The main motivating motives for bullying are envy, revenge, struggle for power, personal hostility towards a person.
Such a person, having chosen a victim, will harass her with constant ridicule, insults, bullying, even physical violence. Bullying can also be collective, when the so-called “persecutors” join the aggressor.
These are assistant strikers who are distinguished by the following personality traits:
- lack of a strong core within oneself (easily succumb to the influence of others);
- low degree of responsibility for one’s own actions;
- lack of empathy, compassion;
- low self-esteem, desire to make friends with “strong” team members.
Group aggression towards the victim has a stronger and more prolonged effect, the impact on the child’s psyche is stronger than with individual bullying.
The most severe consequences occur for children and adolescents who have been bullied, since adults are much less susceptible to psychological violence and can stand up for themselves, including by contacting law enforcement agencies. Children, as a rule, are afraid to ask for protection or do not express their feelings to adults out of a sense of false pride or decency.
Types of bullying
Violence against a person can take various forms; let’s look at the main types of bullying.
Physical impact
The aggressor physically influences the victim - pushes, kicks, pulls the hair. Physical violence can be either mild or severe, up to and including beating. This kind of bullying is suppressed more often than other forms, since its consequences are obvious, and the corresponding actions are punishable by law.
Emotional bullying
The most common form of bullying, which is expressed in constant humiliation, ridicule and insults. A child may be discriminated against based on national or social characteristics or physical disabilities. “Fat trust”, “kalancha”, “son of drunks” - these are all examples of emotional bullying.
The victim is bullied and often socially isolated, which can lead to a nervous breakdown. Not only students, but also teachers who publicly ridicule a child’s mental abilities or behavioral skills can act as an aggressor.
Economic bullying
Economic bullying is expressed in the fact that money or other valuables or things are extorted or directly taken from the victim. Clothing or other personal items may be damaged.
This type of aggression is dangerous because information about the person being persecuted spreads very quickly and becomes available to a large number of people at once.
Cyberbullying
This form of bullying is relatively new and involves aggression using communication tools. This could be distributing defamatory information on social networks, sending threatening letters by email or SMS messages, or filming the abuse of the victim on a video camera.
Reasons for bullying
Bullying is a multifactorial concept; several components contribute to its appearance at school. First of all, the microclimate at school often gives rise to the development of bullying.
This occurs in cases where:
- Teachers themselves provoke bullying situations by allowing humiliation or ridicule towards individual children.
- Adults create privileges for some students who become “favorites” and are forgiven a lot.
- Teachers try not to notice conflicts between teenagers and do not take responsibility for the aggressive behavior of children. By remaining aloof from the problem, adults thereby encourage the further development of bullying at school.
The personality of the aggressor himself, as the central figure of bullying, is also important.
Children and teenagers become bullies if the following factors are present:
- The level of educational work in the family is absent or very low.
- The person has very low self-esteem, which he tries to raise by humiliating others.
- The child strives to be the center of attention, to become an informal leader.
- There is experience of similar relationships in previous social groups.
- Emotional mobility: impulsiveness, aggressiveness.
- Low level of empathy and compassion.
Children from socially disadvantaged families who abuse alcohol or drugs and have sexual contacts from an early age often become bullies. On the other hand, children from absolutely wealthy families, the so-called “majors,” act as aggressors. What unites aggressors is the lack of love and attention from adults, including due to constant earning money. The child, remaining without understanding from the closest people (mom and dad), becomes embittered and tries to achieve recognition by emotionally and physically bullying other children.
What to do if your child is a bully?
Often children who are exposed to family violence or have experienced emotional stress in the past become bullies. The cause may be melancholy, loneliness, resentment. You need to talk in a confidential tone, try to find out, without accusing him of aggression.
There is an overestimated self-esteem in a child who is aware of his actions, he wants universal submission. It’s more difficult with such people; they usually take their behavior model from the TV screen, from the Internet. In their opinion, this will help them achieve everything in life. In any case, you need to talk to your child, even more than once.
You should pay attention to the child's surroundings. Perhaps bullying was caused by communication with older guys who show sarcasm and incite aggressive actions.
An experienced family psychologist can provide an invaluable service, because often it is from the outside that all the problems are more visible. A specialist will quickly understand the causes of child aggression and help find a way out.
Bullying is a serious problem in modern schools. All participants in the educational process, first of all teachers, should try to prevent school bullying. Parents must be sensitive to their child in order to suspect something is wrong. In prosperous families, where warm and trusting relationships have been established between children and parents, it is less likely that a bully or his victim will grow up.
Who is more likely to be a victim of bullying at school?
Anyone can be harassed, but there is one thing that all victims have in common - a strong emotional reaction to insults and harassment. As soon as the offender feels anger, fear or resentment, he realizes that he has achieved his goal, he fed on the emotions of the victim. If the reaction to harassment is adequately strong or indifferent, then the target of harassment will quickly change, and hurting him will become neither interesting nor profitable for the offender.
Traditionally, the targets of bullying are:
- Losers, or vice versa, excellent students.
- Teachers' favorites or rejected by them.
- Children with physical disabilities or disabilities.
- Guys with special, creative thinking, non-standard behavior.
- Students from low-income families.
- Children who have their own view of things, the world in general.
- The most beautiful or, conversely, unattractive girls.
- Representatives of national and sexual minorities.
- Students with low or low self-esteem.
Children who are modest, overly impressionable, and timid are subject to bullying. Boys are more often persecuted physically, and girls emotionally (gossip, rumors).
What are the differences between bullying and mobbing?
Mobbing
is one of the forms of psychological violence, expressed in the bullying of one person by a group of people within a separate team.
The distinctive features of this type of violence from bullying are:
- Mobbing is typical for adult groups and manifests itself at work.
- If in bullying the instigator of bullying is one leader, then mobbing is the influence of a group of people, a “pride”.
- The purpose of bullying is to humiliate the honor and dignity of the victim, psychological suppression. Mobbing, as a rule, has the goal of survival of a person from the team, of hooking him up.
Mobbing does not manifest itself in the form of physical violence; aggressors act more subtly and sophisticatedly. They spread unfounded rumors about a person, belittle his business qualities, and discuss his personal life. This is understandable, because an adult can receive a real prison term for assault, and he is aware of this fact.
If mobbing is “vertical”, then the group of “comrades” against the victim will be led by the first leader, who is trying to increase his own self-esteem at the expense of another person or eliminate a competitor. In “horizontal” mobbing, the aggressors are colleagues who are at the same level of service as the victim.
Despite the apparent mildness of mobbing compared to bullying, it can also lead to serious consequences for the victim, such as a nervous breakdown or attempted suicide.
“There are too many of you in this office.”
It is easiest to bully young, inexperienced colleagues who cannot fight back largely due to lack of confidence in their abilities. According to this principle, Elena Londar, now an HR expert at HeadHunter, and 15 years ago, a 24-year-old head of the HR department of one of the IT companies, became a victim of bullying. Shortly after her appointment, the team showed her an email sent to all 400 employees of the company, excluding her, which stated that she had “unknown how she got her position.” “It was peppered with fantasies of an envious person about my turbulent past, forecasts of an unenviable future and calls to ignore me as a top manager, or better yet to sabotage the performance of my duties so that I would be fired altogether for my inability to work with staff,” says Londar. The ill-wishers even created a thread on the forum, where for another week they “actively dwelt on the details of the abuser’s fantasies.”
Elena turned to the general director: he advised to ignore what was happening and asked the IT department to track down the instigator and block access to the forum from work computers. “After a couple of months, the discussion died down, but it seemed to me that all this time I went to work without clothes. This story gave me several gray hairs, sleepless nights and a lot of experience,” Londar sums up.
“They created a thread about me on the forum, where for another week they actively talked about the details of the abuser’s fantasies.”
The real reason for bullying is one - the psychological problems of the person who is the source of the bullying, says psychologist and psychotherapist Vera Yanysheva. The imaginary reasons that the aggressor uses to justify his behavior can be very different: from accusations of unprofessionalism of the target of bullying to nitpicking about appearance. One of the most common is fat shaming (from the English fat - “fat” and to shame - “shame”). These are actions or statements that ridicule a person for being overweight.
Igor encountered bullying when the term itself did not yet exist - in 1996-1999, while working at Donetsk Tarny, he says.
Another anonymous Forbes interviewee had notes placed on his desk with the text “there are too many of you in this office,” and the managing partner of one of the Moscow marketing agencies constantly received reproaches for being excessively obese from a subordinate. “I gained weight by the fall, and that’s how it started. It seems harmless, but it’s not pleasant,” he says. “Unfortunately, I had to fire this person: he did not compromise, and as the owner of the company, I don’t have time for a showdown.” However, after experiencing bullying, the hero joined the gym and lost 7 kg in a few months.
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How to deal with school bullying
The leading role in stopping school bullying is given to the teaching staff and the specific teacher, class teacher:
- From the first time in class, attempts to ridicule students should be stopped. For example, if a student solved an equation incorrectly and another teenager starts insulting him on the spot, you need to immediately stop the offender, explaining that a classmate’s failure cannot be a reason for ridicule.
- It is necessary to stop all facts of disdainful attitude. In response to a child’s phrase addressed to another: “I won’t sit with him!”, you need to insist on your own. Later, you should talk with the teenager, find out the reason for his antipathy towards the other person, and imagine yourself in his place.
- If a child is a “black sheep,” he should be given the opportunity to express himself and show those qualities that will help him gain authority in the eyes of his classmates.
- Joint activities, games, hikes, and class evenings greatly contribute to class unity. You can come up with the idea of staging a play or publishing a wall newspaper.
- It is strictly forbidden to allow ridicule and humiliation of anyone on the part of the teacher. Children, first of all, copy the behavioral attitudes of adults. Having offended a student, it will be difficult for a teacher to prove to the bully that he is acting incorrectly.
- If a teacher sees a hyperactive, aggressive child striving to take a leadership position, it is necessary to take measures to direct the child’s energy in a positive direction.
Important!
At the first signs of bullying, it is necessary to take measures to suppress it, not to hush up the situation, saving the honor of the uniform. Information about bullying should be communicated to the parents of both children; it is advisable to have a general conversation with ratings and finding a way out of the conflict.
Children will figure it out on their own
“The children will figure it out themselves - this is a provocation, such a prison-Nazi approach to solving the problem of bullying. Let's remember the role of the teacher in the wonderful film “Scarecrow”. This is like a positive woman, loved by her students. She seemed to be doing everything right. She spoke words about the unity of the team... What she was doing was a monstrous simplification of relationships. Here we are all together, and then everything will spin itself: the whole world is in black and white - these are good, these are bad, but the truth lies with the majority. This position inevitably leads to bullying,” says Vadim (Dima) Zitser, director of the Institute of Non-Formal Education INO.
bulling5
Children will figure it out themselves - this is such a Nazi approach to solving the problem of bullying
Photo: Global Look Press/imagebroker/Siegfried Kuttig
Bullying is a primitive way of communication in a group, almost animalistic, says Dima Zitser. The basis for the persecution of individual members of the team is built on the postulate “the world is simple and we are simple, we should all want the same thing,” the teacher believes. But not everyone fits into this system - there is always a person who looks at things differently, or he himself does not understand that he is different, as in the same film “Scarecrow”.
Families will be responsible for difficult children
The government proposes to update legislation on working with difficult teenagers
“In my opinion, a teacher should do the exact opposite - he should complicate relationships. It is necessary to ask each student questions: “what am I?”, “how are my relationships with the world?”, “how do I look at myself and others?” The cure for the problem begins with these questions and the search for answers to them,” says the teacher.
Some parents believe that their child should go through these tests, they say, so the child will be vaccinated against the difficulties of adult life that await him in the future. For example, the army, if we are talking about boys. Others simply underestimate the problem - especially those parents who did not themselves face such trouble in childhood. This is a fundamentally wrong approach from a psychological point of view.
Parents, in cases where they react to a situation of oppression of their child at school, often make a number of other fatal mistakes. “For example, you shouldn’t talk to the teacher in front of the class, and you shouldn’t talk directly to bullies,” says the psychologist.
Consequences of childhood bullying
There are three parties involved in bullying: the aggressor, the victim and witnesses. And for each of them there are consequences. Buller develops destructive personality traits and lacks the ability to build close, trusting relationships in the future.
Witnesses acquire a distorted idea of the role of the individual in society; often throughout their lives they experience feelings of guilt and shame for showing weakness and not defending the victim.
The most severe psychological trauma is inflicted on the victim. Many people, being mature, remember with tears and fear the insults and humiliations suffered in childhood. In terms of the severity of its consequences for the psyche, school bullying is comparable to family violence. Thus, the effects of bullying are long-lasting.
The extreme reaction to bullying is suicide attempts, which are typical for the most susceptible children. The child sees no other way out of the traumatic situation, believing that death is the only way to get rid of suffering.
The physical consequences of bullying include frequent headaches, indigestion, sleep problems, and muscle tension.
All victims of bullies are characterized by low self-esteem throughout their lives and a predisposition to depression. The child grows up to be an anxious, neurotic person, and only qualified help from a psychologist can help in minimizing the consequences of school bullying.
Worse than others
Why is bullying dangerous? The worst thing that can happen to a teenager in such a situation is suicide.
“When faced with regular bullying, victims perceive the situation as hopeless, insurmountable, begin to perceive themselves as a burden to others, and hate themselves for their inability to cope with all this. As a result, death begins to seem to them the only way to get rid of despair. Various health problems often arise,” says Lyutykh. Low self-esteem, social isolation, increased anxiety, a feeling of helplessness - this is the legacy that awaits the victim of teenage attacks in adulthood.
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Victims perceive the situation as hopeless and hate themselves for their inability to cope
Photo: Global Look Press/blickwinkel/WG Allgoewer
However, bullying cripples not only the victim, but also those who have watched their classmate being bullied for many months, and sometimes even years.
Schools tasked with finding suicidal students
The Ministry of Education and Science has developed a method that will help identify children at risk
“Witnesses of bullying can transfer into their adult lives a feeling of helplessness in the face of aggression, as well as the role (defender, indifferent, accomplice of the aggressor) to which they were accustomed at school,” says Izvestia’s interlocutor.
Preventive methods
It is better to prevent any phenomenon than to eliminate its consequences, and bullying is no exception.
The main methods for preventing bullying at school are:
- Creating a microclimate in the educational institution that excludes the possibility and desire of aggressive behavior. Ability to resolve conflicts, tolerant attitude towards all children.
- Focus on family as a source of child upbringing. Study of parental behavior, social and psychological situation in the family. Correction of intra-family relationships.
- Forming the stress resistance of a child’s personality by personal example, through extracurricular activities, giving examples of heroism, resilience in life and art.
- Training in constructive communication skills and respect for the personality of another person.
- Condemnation and suppression of any antisocial behavior of children.
It is worth responding sensitively to manifestations of hostility between individual children, cases of disrespect or insults. At the slightest suspicion of bullying, it is necessary to have a conversation with both the offender and the victim.
Practical part
Friends, this is the ability to properly build communications with people. If you want to work in this direction, I recommend you the online intensive “Effective Communication” - How to understand the hidden emotions of others and build effective communication. This course will teach you:
- Manage your emotions and control impulses
- Overcome difficult emotional situations
- Understand the other person's feelings and thoughts on a deeper level
- Communicate more effectively with your surroundings
- Manage conflicts
- Build harmonious relationships
The author of the course is Oleg Kalinichev. Expert in nonverbal behavior, emotional intelligence and lie detection. Accredited trainer Paul Ekman International. Managing Director of Paul Ekman International in Russia (PEI Russia).
The online intensive “Effective Communication” will be especially useful:
- Entrepreneurs, executives, top managers.
- For those who work with clients, middle managers, and freelancers.
- To everyone who is involved in raising children.
- Anyone who wants to improve their communication with others.
The training consists of 4 blocks:
- Emotions. Basics.
- Emotional stability and emotional flexibility.
- Social efficiency.
- Building harmonious relationships.
This training will not only help you learn a lot about effective communication, but will also help you learn how to apply the acquired knowledge in practice.
Psychologist's advice
If it happens that a child has become a victim of bullying from classmates, psychologists advise the following steps.
For children
- Try to understand that you are not to blame for this attitude on the part of the other child. Remember that they most often pester unusual, interesting people who are somehow different from others. If you are bullied, it means that you are an interesting person, better, not worse than others.
- Build your character. Don't react too emotionally to an insult. The aggressor will not wait for your tears or screams and will simply fall behind; he will not be interested in pursuing you.
- You should never withdraw into yourself and cover for the offender out of a sense of false solidarity. Be sure to share your problems with others. It is important! It's best if it's the parents. If for some reason you don’t want to talk to your parents about this topic, find a person you trust (older brother or sister, grandmother, parents of friends).
Remember
: asking for help is not weakness, but the decision of a mature person in trouble.
FOR TEACHERS
Tips for teaching staff are provided in the section “How to deal with bullying.” The main recommendation is to avoid serious consequences, do not bury your head in the sand and sound the alarm at the slightest suspicion of bullying.
FOR PARENTS
Children rarely admit openly to being bullied at school. Therefore, parents need to pay attention to all changes in the child’s behavior.
The following signs may indicate that your child has become a victim of bullying:
- Increased anxiety.
- Bad dream.
- Reluctance to go to school.
- Obvious signs are bruises and abrasions on the body and face.
- Tearfulness, or unusual harshness, rudeness.
- Depressed state.
If facts of bullying become known, it is necessary to support the child. The biggest mistake is to say: “I’ve played it out” or “It’s my own fault.” The child will no longer trust you. Remain outwardly calm and praise your child for honestly sharing the problem with you.
Make it clear that you are always on his side, no matter what happens now or in the future. Show your willingness to help and resolve the issue, the child will immediately calm down and become more confident. Next, you should begin actions to clarify the situation with teachers, the class teacher, and the parents of your child’s offender. Having clarified the reasons that became the basis for bullying, it is necessary to talk with the child, explaining to him further actions and behavior.
If the case is advanced and cannot be corrected, then the last resort to protect the child and prevent his psychological trauma may be to move to another school. Unfortunately, there are also cases when neither conversations nor registration with the KDN have an impact on the bully and he continues his aggression.
Content:
- Bullying as a type of violence What is bullying
- Types of bullying
- School bullying today - features
- Schoolshooting as a result of bullying
- Victim
- What should a child who is a victim of bullying do?
