To begin with, I'm talking about what I think baffles adults who are trying to cope with bullying in a children's group. About common mistakes, wrong beliefs and strategies that often lead to the situation of bullying persisting or even worsening.
1. Wait for it to go away by itself.
It doesn't go away by itself. Children before adolescence, for sure, have a small chance later. If there are sufficiently authoritative children in the group (not necessarily leaders) who suddenly see the situation differently and dare to express their vision. It may not be possible to stop it completely, but it can greatly reduce bullying. I've seen this several times and participated in it myself. In our class, a boy from a not very prosperous family was heavily bullied, very brutally; he was considered “smelly” (he was enuresis, as I now understand it). They beat me, called me names, took my briefcase, in full. I've always felt sorry for him, but it was taken for granted, inevitable — after all, “that's how he is”. Teachers also mostly tried to put pressure on pity that things did not improve. And then, in grade 6, I suddenly realized that this was impossible. Which is just not possible and that's it, no matter what it is. The feeling of cold between my shoulder blades from 30 glances when I walk across the classroom and sit next to him (NO ONE has EVER voluntarily sat down in this seat) will never be forgotten for the rest of my life. And a whisper “I sat down smelly! It smells itself!” All in all, it was almost social suicide on my part. But there was this new feeling inside, and there was no choice. As I would call it now, morality has gone wrong. Just in time for 12. And that's okay, it did. They were surprised and accepted it as a fact. Apparently, my morality wasn't the only thing that started to break through; the kids were smart. Then the boy came to my house, I taught him a lesson in Russian. He turned out to be very interesting, polite and read a lot. It soon became quieter with the bullying. They didn't like him, of course, but they hurt him less.
But children under 12, with their own morals, are a little weak (their brains are also not mature). And adults must set moral guidelines for them. Children at this age are very ready to hear and accept them. Conversely, in a teenage group, an adult may not be able to cope if they already have, so to speak, “antimoral”. At least it'll be much harder for him.
2. Justify by explaining
The explanations for why bullying occurs are a cart and a small cart. This includes the need for age, the pressure of a closed system (school, prison, army), group hierarchy (omega alphas), and children's personal characteristics (for example, experience of violence that led to victimization or aggressiveness). All this is very important and interesting, and it is definitely worth studying and understanding.
But If all this leads to the conclusion: “so what do you want, that's why they're bullying”, that's why they're bullying”, that's what justifying and explaining. Bullying in a particular class, which affects specific children right now, is not a matter of scientific research; it is a matter of morality and human rights. From this point of view, it doesn't matter who the letter is. If you're an alpha three times, if he's even a hundred times strange and “different”, don't you dare poison him!
If an adult does not have such a strong conviction, and he, enthusiastically with his own insight, “analyzes the reasons”, instead of giving a definite assessment and making demands, he will not be able to stop the bullying. This is exactly what happened in our case, when the teacher gave examples of how bullied children differ from other children in class, and that's why they say. And I lacked the firmness to state clearly that all this was very interesting and, perhaps, true, but had nothing to do with the issue of ensuring the psychological safety of children in her classroom. And when she resorted to her favorite move, “No, but tell me, do you mean you're completely relieving your child of responsibility for this situation?” I should have said a long time ago: “Absolutely. She didn't hit or poison anyone, and 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 the violence and isolation of the school system. Or children deprived of their parents' love and therefore asserting themselves at the expense of others have always been, are and will be. This does not mean that we should tolerate bullying. We should set goals more modestly: there is no goal to change the causes, the task is to change the BEHAVIOR of a particular group of children.
3. Confuse bullying with unpopularity.
Problem substitution. No one owes anyone to be loved by everyone. Everyone can't be equally popular. The point of bullying is not that someone doesn't love someone. The essence of bullying is VIOLENCE. This is group violence, emotional and/or physical. And that is precisely what the adult who is entrusted to a group of children is responsible for. For protecting them from violence.
By the way, many children do not need much popularity in the classroom; they will completely live without it. They may be naturally introverted, shy, or simply belong not to this group, randomly assembled on an administrative basis, but to a completely different group. All they want is safety. And they have every right to it.
Teachers who reduce everything to unpopularity often sincerely try to fix things. They draw the group's attention to the victim's merits, try to increase her rating with special assignments, etc. There were a lot of similar suggestions in the comments. And this is all very nice and effective, under one condition: bullying as violence has ALREADY stopped. Then yes, you can hang letters on the wall. If not, everything and any of the victim's virtues in the eyes of a group captured by the excitement of bullying will be instantly turned into shortcomings. He won the Olympiad — “nerd”. I helped someone — “sauce”. He drew well — “Levitan's muff artist”. It's like that. Interest and respect will not grow in a dirty atmosphere of violence. Disinfection must first be carried out.
By the way, this mistake is often supported by children's books and films. Like, do a feat, impress everyone, and life will get better. If it's just a matter of unpopularity, maybe. If there is bullying, no. And it could even be the other way around. I once talked to a girl who remembered with relish how they bullied Yana Poplavskaya, who had no VIP parents, in a major camp, but was given a ticket after the success of the Little Red Riding Hood movie. They bullied her “to know that she is still not in our circle, even though she is an artist.” The girl herself looked like a rat, to be honest.
4. Consider bullying a victim problem
Of course, it is the victim who is clearly suffering. Poisoners may look very happy with themselves right now. However, it is important to understand that everyone suffers as a result.
A victim who has experienced humiliation, rejection and insecurity, a trauma to self-esteem, or even impaired emotional development due to long and severe stress suffers.
Witnesses suffer, those who stood by and pretended that nothing special was happening, while at the same time they were experiencing powerlessness before the crowd and ashamed of their weakness, as they did not dare to stand up and supported the persecution for fear of becoming a victim themselves. There was a lot of such experience in the comments. This experience can sometimes be useful for a teenager who already has enough strength to make a moral choice. They gave examples of how acute shame made you 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 back on their feet before they're strong enough. There will be a curvature of the bones.
Persecutors suffer because they gain 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 a coarsening of feelings, cutting off opportunities for subtle and close relationships, and, ultimately, to destructive, antisocial personality traits. A Pyrrhic victory that will then result in loneliness and an outcast position in an adult team, where no one will be particularly afraid of such a “bully”, but won't really want to talk to him. Even if he is successful and becomes a boss, we'll be a little happy in his life if he even wears Prada, as you know.
Finally, this is all bad for the group as a whole, for its efficiency and ability to cope with difficulties. Violence is a terrible energy eater; the band has no energy left for anything else. Including for study.
So if it's not your child who is being bullied, don't think that you personally have no reason to worry. Not to mention the fact that bullying that lasts for a long time always results in outbreaks of real violence, as was the case with my daughter's friend. And then absolutely anyone — including yours — can be “appointed” by the group to do its will and “give it to him properly.” Later, he himself won't be able to explain why he got so mad and why he did something that was not typical for him. Well, then there are options. Either he runs the risk of committing a serious crime himself, or the desperate victim will fight back and...
5. Consider bullying a problem for individuals, not groups
This is a “it's all about what they are” approach.
Most often we hear that the victim is “like that” (and it doesn't matter, in a negative way: stupid, ugly, conflicted, or positive: gifted, unconventional, “indigo”, etc.).
Anyone can be a scapegoat. It's an illusion that you have to be something particularly crazy to do that. Yes, it happens sometimes. And sometimes it's the other way around. And whatever you like. Glasses (freckles), thickness (thinness), nationality, poor clothes — anything will work. Yes, there are qualities that contribute to consolidating this role — sensitivity, resentment, just increased vulnerability during this period. There is also a special case of victim children who have experienced violence and are already drawing attention to themselves. But by and large, the reason for the bullying is not the characteristics of the victim, but the characteristics of the GROUP. The same child may be an outcast in one group and his own in another. Or stop being an outcast in the same way in a short time, say, after a change of class teacher.
It also makes no sense to reduce the cause of the bullying to the qualities of those who poison: they are “animals, bastards, rednecks, arrogant offspring of nouveau riche”, etc. Again, of course, children who are not the best off internally often take the role of initiators of bullying. But their qualities alone are not enough. I watched many times how the most notorious etchers, when they accidentally found themselves alone with my daughter, for example, at an after-school school, played peacefully with her. And again, when an adult leader or the position of that leader changes in relation to what is happening, “these bastards” often change their behavior surprisingly quickly, although, of course, they cannot solve their internal problems or improve their cultural level so quickly.
This mistake underlies attempts to overcome bullying through “heart-to-heart talks” or “individual work with a psychologist”. Whether with the victim or with the aggressors. Bullying, like any getting stuck in a destructive dynamic, is a group disease. And we need to work with the group as a whole. The same applies to attempts to “grab 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 instigator, reducing everything to their personal characteristics, is also not a fact that it will help — the action may well continue with other leading actors.
Trying to solve the problem of bullying by solving the personal problems of the actors is like trying to solve the problem of road accidents not by using reasonable traffic rules and control over their implementation, but by developing each individual driver's reaction speed, courtesy and love for others. Of course, it is also necessary to help children solve internal problems, but this is a long job and is usually impossible in a situation of actual bullying. We must first stop the traumatic effect, and then treat it.
6. Pressure on pity
Try to explain to the aggressors how bad it is for the victim and urge them to sympathize. It won't help most often. It will only strengthen them in the position of a strong man who wants to execute, who wants to have mercy. And it will hurt, humiliate or reinforce the victim's helplessness. Especially if it's a boy. I wrote about this in the book “An adopted child has come to class”, where Timur's story is. This is a very common mistake.
7. Accept the rules of the game.
This is probably the most important thing. It's a mistake to choose between victimization and aggression
Any situation of violence provokes this very choice. Or “they hit me because I'm weak and they will always hit me.” Or “I won't be beaten for nothing, I'm strong and I'll be the one who'll hit me.” For all the apparent difference, both positions are similar. They're both based on the same belief about how the world works. Namely, “the strong beats the weak.” Therefore, if an adult identifies or encourages a child to identify from one of these positions, he reinforces this picture of the world.
Prodding a child means telling him to “think about what your own fault is” or “let him care of it.” In either case, the child receives the following 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 required. They know better what you should be like, they are strong, which means they are right. Or you can give a damn about your own safety (don't be afraid!) , and get mad, then you won't be touched. Another option: cut off feelings from yourself (don't pay attention!) and learn how to portray a face that's not what's going on inside. Take your pick, baby!” In fact, the adult in this case agrees 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. Do it yourself as you know.”
Actually, it may be okay if, again, we are dealing with a teenager who needs to gain independence and rely on himself. If he had enough support before, and even now he's safe from extreme forms of violence, he can cope. Then, as someone rightly noted, this will be an initiation, a painful experience, but it will lead to development. At the same time, a teenager will be able to make his own decision about whether this is the way the world works and whether he is ready to agree with this world order. This also depends on whether he was previously exposed to a different system of values as adults and whether he has a home front in his family.
If the child is younger, such adult behavior deprives him of protection and condemns him to premature initiation. Which, yes, a strong child can go through, but he always pays dearly for it. And the weak one still breaks down. And he begins to believe that “this is how the world works”. Such waves of child insecurity splashed in comments to past posts...
When I wrote that we should go into confrontation, that's exactly what I meant. 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, as a poison, as moral rust. With something that shouldn't be. What can't be justified, what ANY child should be protected from — that's it.
This is the main conclusion that I have already written about. This is impossible without confrontation; persuasion will not help, and neither will “team building”. Going into confrontation is reluctant, awkward, unexperienced, because we ourselves almost all have the experience of being a victim and/or a herbalist, and we ourselves are rushing between victimization and aggressiveness.
But it is necessary.
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