School bullying: the story of one bullying

“Juice was poured from the bag directly into my son’s backpack”

Sofia, 36 years old

“Our son is a sociable, positive child,” Sofia says. — He went to kindergarten with pleasure, and got used to it from the very first days and made friends. In the first grade, he quickly joined the new team. At the age of nine, I went to the camp with a friend and returned with a bunch of positive emotions. Therefore, we were not particularly worried when we had to change schools due to the move.

So, the son went to the fifth grade. We understood that there could be difficulties in adapting, because the son’s bad mood, complaints about the lack of friends, unwillingness to get up in the morning were attributed to this process. But time passed, adaptation did not come, the son more and more often returned sad, silent, isolated. And one day (after the New Year holidays) he came home from school with a wet backpack and tears in his eyes.

It turned out that from the very first days two boys began to tease him: they said offensive nicknames, they could brush off the pencil case from the desk, throw a piece of paper until the teacher sees. Periodically, other classmates joined them (the rest turned away and left or stood and watched) — and then it became very bad.

The next step was the “hide and seek” of things, hanging the jacket on another hook. All this was accompanied by ridicule. And then classmates poured the juice from the bag directly into their son’s backpack. When we got over the first shock, we first tried to calm our son as much as possible; told him that he was not to blame for anything, the backpack is not a problem at all, we will buy a new one, and what is happening in the classroom is not normal, it is called bullying, and we, the parents, will no longer allow this.

We wrote to the teacher that there was bullying in the class and the same was reported in the parent chat. In anticipation of action from the school (thanks to the class teacher for his work), we tried to support our son at home, signed him up for a consultation with a psychologist and offered him to go to a chess club (he wanted to do it for a long time, but everything didn’t work out) so that he would get a portion of normal communication.

“Tell your child that bullying is not their fault.”

Maria Afonina, clinical psychologist

How can you tell if your child is being bullied? Children do not always tell their parents about the problem. Some may be in shock (like the hero of this story), others protect loved ones from unrest, others consider this a personal failure and demand decisions from themselves. But dealing with bullying alone is almost impossible.

Bullying is a group phenomenon. When a team has a need to unite, but there is no common goal, it unites against someone. Then bullying occurs — systematic violence against the same person (victim) with an inequality of power between the victim and the offenders (aggressors), with the tacit approval of the group (witnesses). The sooner you notice the signs of bullying, the sooner you can change the situation and avoid negative consequences.

What to look for?

Here are seven key signs that will help you recognize bullying.

1. The mood of the child has changed: sad, depressed, capricious, irritated.

2. Sleeps poorly, lost appetite/eats a lot.

3. Closes, avoids heart-to-heart talk.

4. Refuses to attend extracurricular activities.

5. He does not invite classmates to birthday parties and does not go to events himself.

6. He does not want to go to school, his academic performance has worsened, he is “head in the clouds”.

7. Sometimes things disappear, returns in soiled or torn clothes.

If there are three or more signs, this is a cause for concern and clarification of the situation. To make it easier for the child to open up, you can show that you noticed his condition (“I see that you come home from school sad, do not want to go on excursions”) or share similar stories from your life and your feelings at that moment. It is worth telling the child that bullying is not his fault, you, as parents, are on his side, and the problem can be solved by joint efforts (as the heroes of the story did).

The next step is to communicate the information to the school. It is important to calm down, avoid blaming children or teachers. In order to prevent confrontation and establish a constructive dialogue, you can use the wording: “It’s a difficult situation in our class, it seems that there is bullying, let’s do something together.” Since bullying is a «disease» of the group, then you need to work with the whole team.

The following will definitely not help:

• wait for it to go away on its own and ignore the problem — “this is how they play”, “it happens”;

• shifting responsibility to the victim — “think about what you are doing wrong”;

• arouse pity in the aggressors — «put yourself in his place»;

• give the victim advice in the style of «do not pay attention», «hit back».

Instead, you need:

• call a spade a spade: “we have bullying in our class”;

• give an unambiguous assessment of what is happening: bullying is unacceptable under any circumstances; all people are different, someone may like or dislike someone, but this is not a reason to poison each other;

• designate bullying as a problem of the entire team, which will have to be fought together (instead of finding out the facts and arguing about who is to blame and who started it first);

• help children make their choice. To do this, you can invite the whole class to evaluate their contribution to the disease of the team called “bullying”:

1 — I never participate in this;

2 — sometimes I do it, but then I regret it;

3 — I poisoned and will continue (usually, one of the children rarely gives himself 3 points);

• formulate new rules of life in the team and constantly support these positive changes.

In our story, the class teacher did just that, so the bullying was stopped. It is important to note that the very fact of solving the problem is already healing. The child feels that he is not alone, under protection, and the reason for what is happening is not in his «badness».

You can fix a positive result in the same way as the heroes of the story did — go to a new team, preferably in a circle or section, taking into account the interests of the child. The likelihood of bullying is much less there, because all the participants are already united by a common cause (chess, for example), they do not need to be friends against someone. A visit to a psychologist will help clarify whether there is a negative impact of school bullying on the psychological state of the child, and eliminate it if necessary.

Three books about bullying:

1. Fredrik Backman «Grandma told me to bow and convey that she asks for forgiveness»

2. Natalia Tsymbalenko «Bulling. How to stop child bullying

3. Barbara Colorozo «Bullying. How to eradicate violence and create a society where there will be more kindness»

Detailed information on how to counter bullying can be found on the website of the Bullying Net program of ANO BO Zhuravlik.

And psychologists of the hotline for psychological assistance to adolescents are ready to answer questions about school bullying by calling 8-800-500-44-14.