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.
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?
What the law says
Legal capacity is given to a person from birth, so you can protect yourself at any age. The law provides for penalties for bullying in the form of compensation, which is usually small: 10–15 thousand rubles. In some cases, it can reach hundreds of thousands - if, for example, the victim needs additional treatment.
You can contact the police through your parents or guardianship authorities. From the age of 18 or from the moment of full legal capacity (emancipation), you can submit an application independently. It happens that parents do not respond to their child’s requests. Then he can contact the guardianship authorities. The procedure itself is quite simple, but parents will have to be involved in the process in any case, even during legal proceedings.
Issues of bullying are regulated by the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) or Articles 150, 151 and 152 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
Bullying as a type of violence
What is bullying
The concept of “bullying” (from the English bullying - intimidation, persecution) appeared in the 20th century. But it acquired modern significance relatively recently, thanks to the author of the book “Bullying at School,” Norwegian psychology professor Dan Olweus.
Bullying is a type of violence that involves aggressive persecution of one of the team members by another or a group of people.
The professor conducted the first study among schoolchildren in Norway and Sweden on issues of school bullying. It turned out that 15% of children regularly face situations of bullying, 9% of respondents are victims, 7% are aggressors, and 2% act in both roles.
But here is the data from a modern study conducted in the United States in 2016: 13% of schoolchildren were subject to verbal bullying, 12% became objects of gossip, 5% were subjected to physical violence and 5% were excluded from communication.
The same psychological violence in the form of bullying, boycott, denunciation, but in an adult group, is called mobbing. Research in this area shows that 135 out of 180 employees of Russian companies were subjected to mobbing more than once during their working career.
Types of bullying
What types of bullying are there?
- physical – direct physical actions towards the victim (pushes, kicks, beatings, sexual harassment);
- verbal – threats, insults, ridicule, humiliation;
- socio-psychological – bullying aimed at social exclusion or isolation (gossip, rumors, ignoring, boycott, manipulation);
- economic – extortion or direct taking of money, things, damage to clothing;
- cyberbullying (from English - cyberbulling) or Internet bullying - bullying on the Internet through social networks, email. Involves spreading rumors and false information, hacking personal pages, sending negative messages and comments. It is the youngest and most dangerous type of bullying, since it is very difficult to defend against it and find the sources where the threat comes from. There was even such a concept as bullicide - suicide committed due to bullying on the Internet. The most famous case occurred in the USA in 2006. A mother, together with her thirteen-year-old daughter, harassed a minor acquaintance on the MySpace social network under a fake profile. The girl could not stand the bullying and committed suicide.
School bullying today
What are the features of modern bullying? First of all, bullying occurs mainly on the Internet. Nowadays, social networks and various instant messengers are popular, where under a fake profile or nickname you can write anything to anyone. Many teenagers take advantage of this, confident in their own impunity - that they will not be held accountable for their actions. Schoolchildren send aggressive or indecent videos and photos, and write offensive comments.
Another fact that attracts attention is the participation of girls in bullying. If previously the overwhelming majority of aggressors were boys, now the ratio is approximately 50 to 50. Girls are increasingly taking part in physical bullying. As an example, the case of 2021. In St. Petersburg, schoolgirls brutally beat their classmate, filmed it and sent it to all their friends. The reason for the reprisal was allegedly the fact that the girl saw her classmates drinking alcohol and told adults about it. The beating victim suffered a broken nose and a severe head injury. All participants in this situation are 13 years old...
And an even more terrible fact is that a teacher can also be subject to bullying in a modern school. If previously students could simply smear glue on the teacher’s chair or plant buttons, today teenagers can insult and humiliate the teacher right during the lesson, spit in the face and even hit.
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.
Schoolshooting as a result of bullying
Another phenomenon of the cruel modern world is called schoolshooting. This term refers to the massacre of students, carried out either by a student or by one of the strangers who entered the school. School shooting gained wide publicity after the incident that occurred at Columbine High School in the United States, where on April 20, 1999, two students shot thirteen people at the school and then committed suicide.
The first high-profile case in Russia of an armed attack by a teenager on a teacher occurred in 2014, when a Moscow school student shot and killed a geography teacher and a policeman who arrived at the scene, and also took his classmates hostage.
Most recently, in September 2021, police officers in the city of Kirov managed to prevent a massacre at a school. A teenager was identified who was planning an attack using bladed weapons and homemade explosives. The teenager was interested in the topic of violence on social networks and communicated his intentions in correspondence.
The cases are terrible, the cases are outrageous. But even more terrible is the fact that almost all of those who committed these murders were victims of bullying by classmates. Driven to despair, teenagers took up arms and shot their offenders.
Internet bullying
The problem of bullying is widespread, and given the rapid development of technology and the advent of the Internet in our lives, it is taking on new forms, keeping up with the times. Gradually, communication from schoolyards and playgrounds is moving to the pages of social networks and Internet messengers. Following this, a new type of bullying emerged – cyberbullying. Aggressors use Internet resources for their own purposes, which allow them to persecute a person by spreading negative information about him (for example, posting compromising and discrediting information, photographs, gossip; often bullies even create entire communities dedicated to bullying the victim). Also, the instigator of bullying can use her personal data against the victim (a common “fun” of bullies is posting a photograph, phone number and address of the victim online with an offer of some services). The Internet allows you to do these things anonymously and with a huge audience. In addition, information posted on the Internet almost never disappears from there. For this reason, cyberbullying appears to be more dangerous than just bullying in the classroom or office.
Causes and motives of bullying
Now let's try to understand the causes and motives of bullying. What makes children be so cruel and aggressive towards their peers?
There are actually many reasons. Let's divide them into groups:
- pedagogical (microclimate of the classroom, school). The position of the teacher plays an important role here. A child is more likely to be bullied in an environment where teachers themselves allow themselves to ridicule and humiliate students. In addition, a teacher can take a third-party position in a bullying situation, knowing about the problem but not interfering with it;
- psychological (personality of the aggressor, the so-called buller, and the victim);
- social (propaganda and encouragement of dominant aggressive behavior in society: on television, on the Internet, computer games);
- family (lack of parental love and attention, physical and verbal aggression on the part of parents, excessive control).
Motives for bullying include:
- envy;
- revenge (when the victim of bullying herself becomes a buller, trying to punish the offenders for the suffering they caused);
- self-affirmation in a team;
- the desire to be the center of attention, to look “cool”;
- the desire to neutralize an opponent by humiliating him.
Bullying Prevention
Bullying has dire consequences for everyone involved, and they all need help. Victims experience anxiety, constant suffering, and often have suicidal thoughts. The aggressor most often suffers from complexes himself, trying to establish himself at the expense of others. The observers are guilt-ridden and depressed.
Therefore, adults must confront the problem of bullying among children. It is very good if the class teacher senses the mood in the class, is an authority for the children and is able to stop violence at the very beginning. It’s even better if the teacher is involved in bullying prevention. For this purpose, the school should conduct thematic classes, discussions of friendship, camaraderie, tolerance and tolerance of people towards each other. Parents, for their part, by personal example, should teach children to empathize, to put themselves in the place of an offended and oppressed person. There is no need to raise children in hothouse conditions, it is necessary to tell them that there is pain and suffering, and our actions may be unpleasant to other people; that you always need to think before you do something, because thoughtless, offensive actions towards a weaker person can lead to terrible, sometimes irreversible consequences. In order to prevent bullying, it is very useful to watch feature films on this topic with children. Among them:
- “Scarecrow” by Rolan Bykov;
- "Carrie" (film adaptation of the Stephen King novel);
- “Everyone will die, but I will remain,” “School” by Valeria Gai Germanika;
- "The Sadist" by Larry Clark;
- “Bridge to Terabithia” (the story of the same name by Katherine Paterson) and many others.
It is advisable to discuss with children after watching the film its plot, the feelings and experiences of the characters, and also give the child the opportunity to express their opinion on what they saw.
How can you tell if your child is a victim of bullying?
Children cannot always tell adults about their problems at school. Therefore, it is important for parents to recognize in time that their child has become a victim of bullying. The following signs may indicate this:
- the child has a negative attitude towards school and uses every opportunity to avoid going there;
- returns from school depressed;
- often cries for no apparent reason;
- does not tell anything about classmates and school life;
- sleep and appetite disturbances;
- bruises and abrasions on the face or body, torn clothing.
Child psychology
In primary school and adolescence, a child has an incredibly great need for society and a group. During this period, children need to be in a pack, identify themselves as a member of the group, and feel group cohesion. And when there are positive and safe reasons to feel this cohesion, then everything is fine - bullying is not needed, friendship, kindness, common interests and positive emotions are enough.
But, unfortunately, in modern schools there is practically no such idyll. After all, the first grade was filled with absolutely “random” children who were not united by any one interest. This is how terrible ideas arise that you can unite and be friends together against someone.
Rapture, prowess, fun, euphoria - children are in this state, being united against one person. And in all of this they feel good
- because they are
together
.
Who is involved in bullying?
In a bullying situation, the victim, the aggressor and observers usually take part, i.e. participants in bullying. Let's talk about each of these roles.
Victim
There can be absolutely any reason for bullying. The most common victims are children:
- with physical disabilities or developmental disabilities (reduced hearing or vision, cerebral palsy, etc.);
- unsure of themselves, withdrawn, with increased anxiety and low self-esteem;
- with features of appearance (freckles, fatness/thinness, etc.);
- with low intelligence and learning problems;
- “favorites” of teachers or, conversely, outcasts.
What all victims have in common is the inability to resist the offender, to defend themselves, to fight back.
Aggressor
A potential bully is a person:
- with low self-esteem, which he seeks to raise by humiliating others;
- seeking to be the center of attention at any cost;
- aggressive, cruel, prone to dominance and manipulation;
- more often with problems in family and parent-child relationships.
Aggressors can be children both from disadvantaged families and from families with high financial status.
Observers
This is the largest category of participants in school bullying. Bystanders are the people who become involved in the bullying situation. Here, as a rule, there are three options for the development of events.
- Or the observer comes to the victim’s defense, finding himself under attack and risking becoming a new victim (remember the boy from the film “Scarecrow” who defended Lena Bessoltseva).
- Or the observer takes a passive position, intervening in the conflict in no way.
- And the third option is when the observer actively encourages the aggressor and after some time joins him.
In 2010, a study was conducted among high school students in Moscow and Riga on the subject of school bullying. One of the surveys reflected the characteristics of schoolchildren’s assessment of their own behavior in a bullying situation when their classmate becomes the victim. It's interesting to see the results.
As can be seen from the table, a passive-negative attitude towards the situation of bullying (“I sympathize, but will not support”) is more typical for students in Riga schools. In turn, Moscow schoolchildren and those children who study in Russian-language schools in Riga are more inclined to protect and support the victim of bullying. There is also a large percentage of those schoolchildren who withdraw from the situation (“I won’t pay attention to it”).
How parents can help
There are no specific recommendations, because no one is immune from bullying,” says clinical psychologist Lyubov Vladykina. — It is important that parents do not shift their grievances onto their children, do not put pressure on them and give them some freedom. If bullying does begin, then parents need to remove the child from the unfavorable environment and consult a psychologist.
It is also necessary to activate the resistance potential in the child. To do this, you can, for example, send him to a wrestling section or, say, to a military-patriotic circle. Wrestling is good because it teaches not only the basics of physical training, but also the important skill of confident behavior.
The impact of bullying on its participants and consequences
Now let's trace the impact of school bullying on each of its participants.
What does the aggressor get in a bullying situation? Again, a feeling of one’s own “coolness”, impunity, “omnipotence”. In the future, this leads to an even greater development of destructive, i.e. personality-destructive qualities, deviant behavior and, as a result, registration with the Commission on Minors and Problems with the Police.
What do bullying observers get? Shame and guilt for not helping the victim showed weakness.
And, of course, the most severe psychological trauma is inflicted on the victim of bullying. Even many years later, as adults, victims remember all their painful experiences associated with bullying.
Psychologists note that school bullying is comparable in severity of consequences for the psyche to family violence.
- The victim of bullying begins to develop psychosomatic disorders: frequent headaches, problems with sleep and appetite, and chronic diseases may worsen.
- Plus, there are depressive disorders, increased anxiety, and neurotic manifestations.
- And the most serious reactions to bullying are suicide attempts or school shooting, when a child can no longer tolerate ridicule and bullying and decides to take revenge on the offenders using explosives or bladed weapons.
Why is school bullying dangerous?
In addition to the fact that bullying can take the form of physical violence, that is, lead to injury, it can also be psychological and emotional. Her traces are harder to spot, but she is no less dangerous.
Bullying destroys a person's self-esteem. The target of bullying develops complexes. The child begins to believe that he deserves to be treated poorly.
Bullying interferes with learning because the child has no time for classes: he would like to survive at school. Bullying causes anxiety disorders, phobias, and depression National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Understanding School Violence. .
And not a single person who went through the rejection of the team will ever forget this. Subsequently, a negative attitude towards life in the classroom can spread to any community at all, and this means problems with communication in adulthood.
How to deal with bullying at school?
What should a child who is a victim of bullying do?
Now I would like to address the children:
- If you are bullied at school, called names, damaged clothes and things, be sure to tell an adult about it: parents, teacher, older friend. Remember: asking for help is not weakness, but the decision of an adult in trouble.
- Don't be afraid that "it will be worse" if you tell someone what is happening. It will really be worse if you are left alone with your problem. There will always be someone who is stronger than your offenders and can protect you.
- If you are being bullied on the Internet, be sure to save all correspondence, videos, and voice messages in order to use them in the future as evidence of cyberbullying.
- If the subject of bullying can be corrected, correct it. If you can’t, don’t feel guilty.
How should parents behave?
And now some advice specifically for parents whose child is being bullied at school.
The first and most important point is to relieve the child of guilt!
Explain that it is not his fault that he was bullied. The child is in no way worse than others, he just finds himself in a difficult situation for himself, from which his parents and teachers will help him find a way out.
- Let your child know that you are on his side. Support and reassure: “It’s good that you told me everything! I believe you. It's not your fault what happened. I will help you".
- Talk to him confidentially about the current situation. Explain to him further actions and course of action.
- Help your child gain self-confidence and the ability to resist peer attacks.
- Talk to the class teacher, teachers, and parents of your child’s abuser.
- If the situation is serious and cannot be resolved peacefully, consider transferring to another school or class. Again, this is an extreme case, since the same thing can happen again in a new place.
- In a cyberbullying situation: if the bully is known, block messages from his address or complain to the site administration. If the aggressor remains anonymous, print out the correspondence, take screenshots of pages with videos and photographs and go straight to law enforcement agencies.
The task of parents is not just to protect and support a child facing a situation of bullying, but also to teach him correct, healthy communication with people around him. In everyday life it is very difficult to avoid encounters with evil, cruelty and aggression. The child must learn to say “no,” not to succumb to the provocations and manipulations of his comrades, to know that sometimes it is better to let adults in on his problems than to figure it out on his own, and to be sure that his family will not brush him off, but will help and support him in difficult times.
Do you suspect that the child is hiding the fact of bullying or is not telling something? Come to your child's aid by finding out the details and obtaining evidence of bullying. Download the Where Are My Kids app with accurate GPS locator and Around Recording feature from the AppStore and GooglePlay.
Reduce to zero
Of course, it is almost impossible to reduce bullying to zero. But minimizing the number of conflicts and reducing their severity is quite possible. It is necessary to create conditions at school that would allow conflicts to be resolved at the initial stage and a friendly environment to be created, experts believe.
Since September last year, the project “Friendly and supportive environment in institutions of general secondary education” has been implemented in 26 schools in Belarus as part of an educational experiment. Its curator is the Institute of Psychology of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after M. Tank with the support of the UN Children's Fund UNICEF and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus. The program provides for the creation in schools of a mechanism aimed at reducing the number of conflicts among students - bullying, mental and physical violence.
Another experiment is taking place in schools in the Partizansky district. Its goal is to create a holistic system of psychological support in educational institutions. The district's socio-pedagogical center (SPC) assigned several schools to each of its educational psychologists. The guys know that in case of a problem situation they can always turn to a specialist for help. In the coming school year, two districts will join the experiment.
Photo is for illustrative purposes, photo by Depositphotos
The Minsk City Institute for Educational Development accumulates and analyzes this experience. Head of the Department of Ideological and Educational Work Natalya Karpusheva says:
— There are a lot of projects, we select the most interesting ones. For example, the creation of mobile leisure rooms for children and teenagers. A child can just hang out there, or he can talk to volunteers about his problem.
Or a mobile application for children and teenagers “SAM in a cube”. It was created by two psychologists from secondary school No. 201. The modern generation does not really like cell phone calls, so helplines are not suitable for them. And in this case, a person can go into the application and, by choosing answers, describing his condition, understand what is happening to him. Two social educators organized a small project, which in 2 years led to the creation of a website. They studied all the sports grounds and stadiums in the city, created an interactive map, and teenagers who are looking for something to do can go to the website, register, and assemble their team online in any sport - football, volleyball, basketball. By the way, several friendly matches have already taken place between such squads.
How to respond to aggression?
Discuss all cases of bullying with your child so that he can respond to the actions of the offenders. As a rule, the scenarios are repeated: name-calling, petty sabotage, threats, physical violence.
In each case, the victim needs to act in a way that the aggressors do not expect.
Always respond to insults, but calmly, without slipping into retaliatory abuse. For example, say: “And I’m talking to you politely.” If a child sees that someone has ruined his things, he needs to inform the teacher about this, so that the offenders can hear: “Maria Alexandrovna, there is chewing gum on my chair, someone has ruined the school furniture.” If they try to beat you or drag you away, if you can’t escape, you need to shout loudly: “Help! Fire!". Unusual. But letting yourself be beaten is worse.
Since the methods of bullying are varied, the responses will be individual. Can't figure out what to do? Ask the psychologists who should be in every school.
Why do they bully?
Because they can. If you ask grown-up offenders why they engaged in bullying, as a rule, they answer that they did not understand that they were doing something wrong. Someone is looking for excuses for their behavior, explaining that the victim received “for the cause.”
Researchers conclude that the source of bullying is not in the personality of the victim or the offender, but in the principle by which Peter Gray classes are formed. GraySchool Bullying: A Tragic Cost of Undemocratic Schools. .
Children in schools are collected based on one characteristic - year of birth. Such a group would never have formed naturally. Therefore, conflicts are inevitable: children are forced to communicate with those who are imposed on them, without the right to choose.
The situation at school is reminiscent of the situation in a prison: people are forcibly driven into one room, and they must be monitored by people who have no less strict control.
Bullying is both an opportunity to establish one’s power in such an unnatural group, and to unite offenders into a cohesive group. And in any group, responsibility for actions is blurred, that is, children receive psychological indulgence for any actions Ruland, E. How to stop bullying at school. .
There is only one mandatory condition, without which bullying is impossible: connivance on the part of teachers or tacit approval of such behavior.
So it's all the teachers' fault?
No. The fact is that teachers don't see bullying. Attackers know how to behave quietly, pretend to be good boys and mock the victim when no one notices. But the victim, as a rule, is no different from such cunning. And if he gives an answer, he catches the eye of the teachers.
Result: the teacher sees how the student violates the order, but does not see what became the reason for this.
The problem cannot be denied, though. Many adults believe that children will figure it out on their own, that it is better not to interfere, that the target of bullying is “himself to blame.” And sometimes the teacher does not have enough experience, qualifications (or conscience) to stop bullying.
Who is at risk?
That's all, really. For bullying, they look for a reason, something in which the child differs from others (in any direction). These could be physical disabilities, health problems, poor academic performance, glasses, hair color or eye shape, lack of fashionable clothes or expensive gadgets, even a single-parent family. Often those who suffer are closed children who have few friends, children at home who do not know how to communicate in a group, and in general anyone whose behavior is not similar to the behavior of the offender.
It is useless to correct any features that have become a reason. Those who poison can, if they wish, get to the lamppost.
What can be done with offenders?
There are few options. If a child is beaten, you need to go to the emergency room, undergo a medical examination, report to the police and go to court for compensation for harm. Parents and the school will be held accountable for unlawful acts. The offenders themselves are responsible only after 16 years of age (for grievous harm to health - after 14) Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Article 20. Age at which criminal liability begins. .
But if bullying is only emotional, it is unlikely that you will be able to prove something and attract law enforcement. You need to immediately go to the class teacher, and if the teacher denies the problem, to the head teacher, director, RONO, City Education Department. The task of the school is to organize that same psychological work within a class or several classes in order to stop violence.
How to stop bullying?
In fact, none of the researchers can give a recipe for how to stop bullying. It should be taken into account that if bullying has started at school, it is impossible to eliminate the problem at the “victim-attacker” level, because this is ineffective. You need to work with the whole team, because in bullying there are always more than two participants Petranovskaya, L. Bullying in a children's group. .
The entire class and teachers are witnesses who are also affected by the unfolding drama. They also take part in the process, albeit as observers.
The only way to really stop bullying is to create a normal, healthy community at school.
This is helped by joint assignments, working in groups on projects, and extracurricular activities in which everyone participates.
The main thing that needs to be done is to call bullying bullying, violence, to indicate that the actions of the aggressors have been noticed and that this must be stopped. So everything that offenders consider cool will be shown in a different light. And this must be done either by the class teacher, or by the head teacher, or by the director.
