Do's and Don'ts if your child is being bullied at school

The book adults and children. #Multiletters" consists of texts from different years, which the psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya published on her blog. She shared her thoughts about children and adults, talked about the problems of orphanhood and the protection of children's rights, and shared her personal experience. For example, a story about how classmates poisoned her child. With the permission of the AST publishing house, we are publishing an excerpt from the post "Children in a Cage" about bullying and ways to resist it.

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[…] To begin with, about what, as it seems to me, leads adults who are trying to cope with bullying in a children's group to a dead end. About typical mistakes, incorrect beliefs and strategies that often lead to the fact that the situation of bullying is preserved or even aggravated.

1. Wait for it to pass

It just doesn't go away. In children before adolescence, sure, later there is a small chance. If there are enough authoritative children in the group (not necessarily leaders) who suddenly see this situation differently and decide to declare their vision. It may not stop bullying completely, but it can greatly reduce bullying.

I have witnessed this several times and have participated in it myself. In our class, a boy from a not very prosperous family was badly bullied, very cruelly, he was considered "stinky" (he was enuresisas I now understand). They beat me, called me names, took away the portfolio, in general, in full. It was always a pity for him, but it was perceived as a given, an inevitability - after all, "he is like that." Teachers also mostly tried to put pressure on pity, which did not improve things. And then, in the sixth grade, suddenly the realization came that it was impossible. That it is simply impossible and that's it, no matter what it is. The feeling of coldness between the shoulder blades from 30 glances, when I walk through the entire class and sit next to him (NOBODY NEVER voluntarily sat in this place), I will not forget all my life. And a whisper: “I sat down with a stinker! She stinks!" All in all, it was almost social suicide on my part. But inside there was this new feeling, and there was no choice. As I would now call it, morality has hatched. Just at 12. And nothing happened. They were surprised and accepted as a fact. Apparently, morality began not only to erupt in me, the children were smart. And then the boy came to my house, I pulled him up in Russian, he turned out to be very interesting, polite and read a lot. Somehow, it soon became quieter with the bullying. They did not love him, of course, but offended him less.

But up to 12 with their own morality in children is rather weak (the brain has not yet matured). And adults are obliged to ask them moral guidelines.

Children at this age are very ready to hear and accept them. And vice versa, in a teenage group, an adult may not be able to cope if there has already developed, so to speak, “antimoral”. At least it will be much more difficult for him.

2. Justify by explaining

The explanations for why bullying occurs are a load and a small cart. Here is the need for age, and the pressure of a closed system (school, prison, army), and group hierarchy (alpha-omega), and personal characteristics of children (for example, experiences of violence that led to victimization or aggressiveness). All this is very important and interesting, and certainly worth studying and understanding.

But. If the conclusion is drawn from all this: “So what do you want, because there are so many reasons, that’s why they poison you,” this is justifying by explaining. Bullying in a particular class, from which specific children are suffering right now, is not a matter of scientific research, it is a matter of morality and human rights. From this point of view, do not care who is what letter. Whether you are at least three times alpha, whether he is at least a hundred times strange and “not like that”, don’t you dare poison!

If an adult does not have such a firm conviction in his head and he is in rapture from his own insight "analyzes the reasons" instead of giving a certain assessment and making demands, he stops the bullying can not. It just happened in our case, when the teacher gave examples to all my conversations of how children who are being bullied differ from other children in the class, and that's all, they say, for this reason. And I lacked the firmness to clearly articulate that all this is very interesting, maybe it’s true, only has nothing to do with the issue of ensuring the psychological safety of children in the entrusted to her class. And when she resorted to her favorite move: “No, but tell me, do you mean that you completely remove responsibility for this situation from your child?”, I should have said for a long time: “Absolutely. She didn’t beat anyone or poison anyone, but she doesn’t have to be like everyone else. ”

In addition, the causes are often so global that it is impossible to eliminate them. For example, aggression in society or violence and the closedness of the school system. Or here are the children deprived of love parents and therefore those who assert themselves at the expense of others have always been, are, and will be. This does not mean that you have to endure bullying. It is necessary to set more modest goals: there is no task to change the causes, there is a task to change the behavior of a specific group of children.

3. confuse bullying and unpopularity

Problem change. No one owes anyone to be loved by everyone. Not everyone can be equally popular. The essence of bullying is not that someone does not love someone. The essence of bullying is violence. This is gang violence, emotional and/or physical.

And that is the responsibility of an adult who is entrusted with a group of children. For their protection from violence.

Many children, by the way, do not need special popularity in the class, they will live without it.

They may be naturally introverted, shy, or simply belong not to this randomly assembled administrative group, but to a completely different group. All they want is security. And they have every right to it.

Educators who reduce everything to unpopularity often sincerely try to correct the situation. They draw the attention of the group to the dignity of the victim, try to increase her rating with special assignments, etc. There were many similar suggestions in the comments. And all this is very nice and effective - on one condition: bullying as violence has already been stopped. Then yes, you can hang letters on the wall. If not, any and all advantages of the victim in the eyes of the group, captured by the excitement of persecution, will be instantly turned into disadvantages. Won the Olympiad - "nerd". Helped someone - "sneak". painted well - "artist-mazil-piss-Levitan". Everything is like that. In a dirty atmosphere of violence, the sprouts of interest and respect will not break through. First you need to disinfect.

This mistake, by the way, is often supported by children's books and films. Perform a feat, impress everyone, and life will improve. If it's just unpopularity, maybe. If there is bullying, no. And maybe even vice versa. Once I talked with a girl who recalled with gusto how they poisoned Yana Poplavskaya, who did not have VIP parents, but was given a ticket after the success of the film about the Red Beanie. They poisoned her, “so that she knew that she was still not of our circle, although she was an artist.” The girl herself looked like a rat, to be honest.

4. Think of bullying as a victim problem

Of course, it is the victim who suffers. Those who are bullying may look very pleased with themselves right now. However, it is important to understand that everyone suffers as a result.

The victim suffers, having experienced humiliation, rejection and insecurity, trauma of self-esteem, and even impaired emotional development due to long and severe stress.

Witnesses suffer, those who stood aside and pretended that nothing special was happening, and at the same time experienced powerlessness before the power of the mob and shame for his weakness, because he did not dare to intervene and supported the persecution for fear of becoming a victim himself. There were many such experiences in the comments. This experience can sometimes be useful for a teenager who already has enough strength to make a moral choice. Examples were given of how acute shame experienced made them do something. But for a young child, such an experience is always traumatic and destructive, shame drives him into a corner, that's all. It's like forcibly putting a child on its feet before they are strong enough. There will be a curvature of the bones.

The persecutors suffer, getting the experience of jackals in a pack, or the experience of a puppeteer, the experience of impunity, the illusion of their strength and rightness. This experience leads to coarsening of feelings, cutting off opportunities for subtle and intimate relationships, and ultimately to destructive, asocial personality traits. A Pyrrhic victory, which will later turn into loneliness and the position of an outcast in an adult team, where no one will be particularly afraid of such a “bully”, but will not want to communicate with him. Even if he is successful and becomes chief, there will be little happiness in his life, even if he wears a solid Prada, as you know.

Finally, this is all bad for the group as a whole, for its effectiveness, its ability to cope with difficulties. Violence is a terrible devourer of energy; the group no longer has the strength for anything else. Including study.

So if it’s not your child who is being bullied, don’t think that you personally have no reason to worry.

5. See bullying as an individual problem, not a group problem.

It's a "what's the point" approach. they are». Most often, one hears that the victim is “like that” (and it doesn’t matter, in a negative way: stupid, ugly, conflict, or in a positive way: gifted, non-standard, “indigo”, etc.).

Anyone can become a scapegoat. It's an illusion that you have to be some kind of extraordinarily abnormal to do this. Yes, sometimes it does. And sometimes the opposite is true. And in general, whatever. Glasses (freckles), thickness (thinness), nationality, poor clothes - everything will do. Yes, there are qualities that contribute to the consolidation of this role - sensitivity, resentment, just increased vulnerability during this period. There is also a special case of victimized children who have experienced violence and thus attract attention to themselves. But in general, the cause of bullying is not in the characteristics of the victim, but in the characteristics of the group. The same child can be an outcast in one group and an insider in another. Or stop being an outcast in the same one in a short time, say, after a change in class teacher.

In the same way, it makes no sense to reduce the cause of bullying to the qualities of those who bully: they are “animals, bastards, rednecks, impudent offspring of the nouveau riche,” etc. Again, of course, the role of bullying initiators is often taken by children who are not the most prosperous internally. But their qualities alone are not enough. I have watched many times how the most notorious poisoners, accidentally finding themselves with their daughter together, for example, on an extension, peacefully played with her. And again, when changing the adult leader or the position of this leader in relation to what is happening, often “these bastards” are amazingly quickly change their behavior, although, of course, they cannot solve their internal problems so quickly or improve their cultural level.

This mistake is at the heart of attempts to overcome bullying through "heart-to-heart talks" or "individual work with a psychologist." Whether with a victim or with aggressors.

Bullying, like any stuck in a destructive dynamic, is a disease of the group. And you have to work with the group as a whole.

The same applies to attempts to "take the breasts." This may protect a particular child, but a group that has tasted "blood" will immediately choose another victim. Simply removing the victim or the instigator, reducing everything to their personal characteristics, is also not a fact that will help - the action may well continue with other performers of the main roles.

Trying to solve the problem of bullying by solving the personal problems of the actors is like trying to solve the problem of traffic accidents. reasonable traffic rules and control over their execution, and the development of reaction speed, courtesy and love for each individual driver neighbor. Of course, it is also necessary to help children solve internal problems, but this is a long job and usually impossible in a situation of actual bullying. We must first stop the traumatic effect, and then treat it.

6. Press for pity

Try to explain aggressorshow the victim is bad, and call for sympathy. Won't help most of the time. It will only strengthen them in the position of a strong one who wants - executes, wants - pardons. And the victim will offend, humiliate or reinforce her helplessness. […] A very common mistake.

7. Accept the rules of the game

This is the most important, perhaps. The mistake is to choose between victimhood and aggression.

Any situation of violence provokes this choice. Or “they beat me because I am weak, and they will always beat me.” Or “they won’t beat me for anything, I’m strong, and I will beat.” Despite the apparent difference, both these positions are similar. They are both based on the same belief about how the world works. Namely, "the strong beat the weak." Therefore, if an adult identifies or pushes a child to identify with one of these positions, he thereby reinforces this picture of the world.

Pushing a child means telling him “think about what you yourself are doing wrong” or “give him something to be discourteous”. In both cases, the child receives such a message from an adult: “The world, you know, works like this, and we have no other world for you. You can capitulate to violence, betray yourself and change as you are asked to. They know better what you should be, they are strong, which means they are right. Or you can give a damn about your own safety (do not be afraid!) And become brutal, then you will not be touched. Another option: cut off feelings from yourself (don't pay attention!) And learn to portray with your face not what is happening inside. Take your pick, baby! In fact, the adult in this case identifies with bullying as a phenomenon and leaves the child alone with it.

The child behind all these “Learn to build relationships” or “Give back” hears: “No one will protect you, don’t even hope. Handle yourself the way you want to."

Actually, it may be nothing if, again, we are dealing with teenagerIt is time for him to gain independence and rely on himself. If before that he had enough support and if now he is still insured against very extreme manifestations of violence, he can cope. Then, as someone rightly noted, it will be an initiation, a painful experience, but leading to development. At the same time, a teenager will be able to make his own decision about whether the world works this way or not and whether he is ready to agree with this world order. This also depends on whether he was previously presented with a different system of values ​​by adults and whether he has a rear in the family.

If the child is younger, such adult behavior deprives him of security and dooms him to premature initiation. Which, yes, a strong child can go through, but always pays dearly for it. And the weak one breaks down. And he begins to believe that "this is how the world works." Such waves of this childish insecurity splashed in the comments to past posts ...

When I wrote that we need to go to the confrontation, that's exactly what I had in mind. Not a confrontation with specific stupid children, but a confrontation with the rules of the game, according to which "the strong have the right to beat the weak." With bullying as violence, as a disease, poison, moral rust. With what shouldn't be. What cannot be justified, from which any child should be protected - period.

This is the same main conclusion that I have already written about. It is impossible here without confrontation, persuasion will not help, "team building" too. It is reluctant, embarrassing, there is no experience to go to a confrontation, because almost all of us ourselves have the experience of a victim and / or the experience of a bully and we ourselves are torn between victimization and aggressiveness, enough of the same comments read. And it is necessary.

Now what can be done. Of course, situations are very diverse, these are general principles and steps.

1. name the phenomenon

No "My son (Petya Smirnov) doesn't get along with his classmates."

When a child is deliberately brought to tears, teased in concert and systematically, when taken away, hidden, spoil his things when he is pushed, pinched, beaten, called names, emphatically ignored - this is called bullying. Violence.

Until you call by your name, everyone will pretend that nothing special is happening. Next, you need to understand who is ready to take responsibility for stopping this case. A sign that you are ready is just the readiness to call bullying bullying. Ideally, if it is immediately a teacher. If he continues to sing a song about “well, he is like that” - he will have to go higher. We need to find someone who will call what is happening by its name. And start working on it. If this is a leader, let him give an order and monitor the implementation or do it himself, since the subordinates are not capable. Turning to external authorities is an extreme option, but if there is no other way out, there is no need to delay. In our case, only the level of the director changed. The director also tried to play the game “Why didn’t you work with your child”, but after the question “So you sign for that your pedagogical team cannot cope with the bullying of a child in the classroom?” quickly changed the style of conversation, and we are nice about everything Deal.

Next is the adult who took responsibility (for simplicity, we will call him a teacher, although this may be a school psychologist, camp counselor, trainer, head teacher, etc.) should talk to the bullying group and name the phenomenon group.

Many of the comments of the former "pickers" show how children do not realize what they are doing. In their head it's called "we tease him" or "this is how we play" or "we don't like him". They should learn from an adult that when they do this and that, it's called like this, and it's not allowed.

Sometimes it is necessary to describe the situation from the point of view of the victim. I, oddly enough, needed to do this for teachers. Otherwise, it was impossible to get them out of "think about it, children always tease each other." I invited them to imagine: “Here you come to work. No one says hello, everyone turns away. You walk down the corridor - behind chuckles and whispers. You come to the teachers' meeting, sit down. Immediately, everyone sitting nearby gets up and defiantly sits away. You start a test and discover that someone has erased the task written on the board in advance. You want to look at your diary - it's not there. Later, you find it in the corner of the closet, with footprints on the pages. Once you break down and scream, you are immediately called to the director and reprimanded for unacceptable behavior. You try to complain and hear in response: “You need to be able to get along with colleagues!” Your health? How long can you endure?"

Important: do not put pressure on pity. In no case do you “can you imagine how bad he is, how unhappy he is?”. Only: “How would you be in such a situation? How would you feel?

And if living feelings come in response, do not gloat and do not attack. Only sympathy: yes, it is hard for everyone. We are people, and it is important for us to be together.

Sometimes the first point is enough, if it has just begun.

2. Give an unambiguous rating

People can be very different, they can like each other more or less, but this is not a reason to poison and gnaw at each other, like spiders in a jar. People are people, reasonable people, that they are able to learn to be together and work together without having to. Even if they are very, very different and someone seems completely wrong to someone. You can give children examples of what may seem wrong to us in other people: appearance, nationality, reactions, views, hobbies, etc. Give examples of how the same quality at different times and in different groups was evaluated differently. There is also a cool role-playing game about brown-eyed and blue-eyed people, but it should be conducted by professionals. And it clears the mind.

Of course, all this will work out only if the adult himself sincerely believes so. This should be a sermon, not a lecture.

3. Label bullying as a group issue

When people are attacked with a moral charge, they become defensive. At this moment, they are not interested in whether they are right or not, the main thing is to justify themselves. Children are no exception. Especially children are the instigators of bullying, because very often these are children with narcissistic trauma, completely unable to bear the shame and guilt. And they will fight like gladiators for their role as super duper alphas. That is, in response to calling bullying violence, you will hear: “Why is he? And we are nothing... And this is not me, ”and stuff like that. It is clear that there will be no sense from a discussion in this vein. Therefore, it is not necessary to lead it.

There is no need to argue about facts, to find out what exactly “he is”, who exactly what, etc. It is necessary to designate bullying as a disease of the group.

So to say: there are diseases that affect not people, but groups, classes, companies. Now, if a person does not wash his hands, he can catch an infection and get sick. And if the group does not monitor the purity of relations, it can also get sick - with violence. This is very sad, it is harmful and bad for everyone. And let's urgently get treated together so that we have a healthy, friendly class. This will allow the instigators to save face and even give them the opportunity to at least try on the role of a non-destructive "alpha" who is "responsible for the health of the class." And, most importantly, it removes the opposition between victims-rapists-witnesses. All in the same boat, a common problem, let's solve it together.

With older children, you can watch and discuss "Lord of the Flies" or (better) "Scarecrow". With the little ones - "The Ugly Duckling".

4. Activate the moral sense and formulate a choice

The result will not be lasting if the children simply bend to the formal requirements of the teacher. The task is to bring them out of the “packing” excitement into a conscious position, to include a moral assessment of what is happening. You can ask the children to evaluate what their contribution to the class disease called “bullying” is. Let's say 1 point is "I never participate in this", 2 points - "I sometimes do it, but then I regret it", 3 points - "I bullied, bullied and will bully, it's great." Let everyone simultaneously show on their fingers - how many points would they give themselves? If they are not teenagers, there will be no “triples”, even for the most inveterate aggressors. In this place, in no case should you try to convict: no, in fact you are poisoning. On the contrary, you need to say: “How glad I am, my heart is relieved. None of you think that poisoning is good and right. Even those who did it later regretted it. That’s great, so it won’t be hard for us to heal our class.” Thus, the moral assessment of bullying becomes not external, imposed on adults, but is given by the children themselves.

If the group is deeply engrossed in the pleasure of violence, the confrontation can be more violent. I described the reception with "ugly duckling” in the book, I will retell here briefly. Reminding the children of the passage in which bullying is described, one can say something like this: “Usually, when reading this fairy tale, we think about the main character, about the duckling. We feel sorry for him, we worry about him. But now I want us to think about these chickens and ducks. Everything will be fine with the duckling, he will fly away with the swans. And they? They will remain stupid and angry, unable to sympathize or fly. When a similar situation arises in a class, everyone has to decide who he is in this story. Are there any of you who want to be stupid evil chickens? What is your choice?

The same technique can help parents realize that if not their child is being bullied, but vice versa, this is also very serious. Their children are in the role of stupid and vicious chickens, and such roles dry up so tightly that they begin to change their personality. Do they want this for their children?

For an individual conversation with a child who does not understand what is wrong with bullying, this is also suitable.

5. Formulate positive rules for group life and conclude a contract

So far, we've talked about how not to. It would be a mistake to stop there, because by forbidding children the old ways of reacting and behaving and not allowing others, we provoke stress, confusion and a return to the old.

The moment when the old, “bad” group dynamics is interrupted, the unwinding of its destructive spiral is stopped, is the most suitable moment to launch a new dynamic. And it's important to do it together.

It is enough just to formulate the rules of life in a group together with the children. For example: “No one sorts things out with fists. We don't insult each other. They don’t look calmly here, if two people fight, they separate them. ”

If the children are older, more complex situations can be analyzed: for example, people are sensitive in different ways, and what is a friendly struggle for one may be painful for another. This can be reflected in such a rule, for example: "If I see that I have unwittingly hurt and offended a person, I will stop doing what I am doing immediately." But too much, subtle and complicated is not necessary - at least for a start.

The rules are written on a large sheet, and everyone votes for them. It is even better for everyone to put a signature that they undertake to comply with them.

This technique is called "contracting", it works great in therapy and training groups for adults, and with children it is also quite effective. If someone breaks the rules, they can simply silently point to a poster with his own signature.

6. Monitoring and supporting positive change

It is very important. In our case, this was the main mistake: I talked with the director, she reined in someone, it seemed to be getting better, and we did not put pressure on it, hoping that everything would gradually get better. And it subsided, but smoldered like a peat swamp.

It is very important that the adult who has undertaken to resolve the situation does not leave the group. He should regularly ask how things are going, what works, what is difficult, how to help. You can make a “bullying counter”, some kind of vessel or board, where everyone who got it today, or who saw something similar to violence, can put a pebble or stick a button. The number of pebbles determines whether today was a good day, whether this week is better than last, etc. Yes, there are many tricks, coaches and game technicians know them. The bottom line is that the group constantly gets interested interest from an authority figure and still considers defeating bullying to be their common cause.

7. Harmonize Hierarchy

Now it's time to think about popularity. About the fact that everyone has recognition in something of his own, could present himself to the group, be useful and valuable in it. Holidays, competitions, talent reviews, hikes, expeditions, team building games - a rich arsenal, I don’t want to go for a walk. The longer the group has to live in this composition, the more important this stage is.

A sign of a harmonious group hierarchy is the absence of rigidly fixed roles of "alphas", "betas" and "omegas", a flexible flow of roles: in this situation leader becomes one, in that - another. One draws best, another jokes, the third scores goals, the fourth comes up with games. The more varied and meaningful activities, the healthier the group.

Well, this is from the “very good” series. In principle, a peaceful, calm coexistence is enough, and children can realize themselves in other places.

Something like this. There is no America here, and it is not clear why teachers are not taught something like this. Of course, there are many complicated situations - for example, aggressive behavior of the victim, or persistent victimization, or support for bullying by parents. But it is already necessary to delve into and think about how to be in this case. And I roughly described the general strategy.

The book adults and children. #Multiletters" will answer popular questions that parents have. For example: how to protect a child from cruelty, betrayal and other adult problems, how to interact with him carefully so as not to cause injury, and many others.

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