How To Stop Child Bullying

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

You can read the first part of the material on child bullying here: Behavioral mistakes that make bullying worse. Now about what can be done in this situation. Of course, situations are very diverse, these are general principles and steps.

1. Name the phenomenon

No "My son (Petya Smirnov's) does not get along with his classmates."

When a child is deliberately brought to tears, consistently and systematically teased, when they take away, hide, spoil his things, when he is pushed, pinched, beaten, called names, emphatically ignored - this is called POLLING. Violence. Until you give it your name, everyone will pretend that nothing special is happening.

Next, you need to understand who is ready to take responsibility for the termination of this case. The sign that you are ready is just the willingness to call bullying bullying. Ideal if it's a teacher right away. If he continues to sing a song about "Well, he is like this" - he will have to go higher. We need to find someone who will call what is happening by his name. And start work with it.

If this is a leader, let him give the order and track the implementation, or do it himself, since the subordinates are incapable. Contacting external authorities is an extreme option, but if there is no other way out, there is no need to delay. In our case, changes were made only from the director's level.

The principal also tried to play the game “why didn't you work with your child?” quickly changed the style of conversation and we agreed on everything nicely.

Further, the adult who took over the public, for the sake of simplicity, we will call him a teacher, although it can be a school psychologist, a counselor in a camp, a coach, a head teacher, etc. should talk to the bullying group and NAME the event to the group.

According to many reviews of the former "huntsmen", it is clear how the children do not realize what they are doing. In their minds it is called "we tease him" or "we play like that" or "we do not love him." They need to learn from an adult that when they do this and that, it is called like this and it is unacceptable.

Sometimes it is necessary to describe the situation from the point of view of the victim. Oddly enough, I needed to do this for teachers. Otherwise, it was impossible to get them out of "think, children always tease each other."

I suggested to them to imagine:

“Here you come to work. Nobody greets, everyone turns away. You walk down the corridor, laughing and whispering behind. You come to the teacher's council, sit down. Immediately, all those sitting next to them stand up and defiantly sit down further away.

You start a quiz and find that someone has erased the task that was written on the blackboard. You want to look at your diary - it's not there. You later find him in the corner of the closet, with footprints on the pages.

Once you break loose and shout, you are immediately called to the director and reprimanded for inappropriate behavior. You try to complain and hear in response: you need to be able to get along with colleagues! " How are you feeling? How long can you endure?"

Important: do not press on pity. In no case "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 live feelings come in response, do not gloat and do not attack. Only sympathy: yes, it's 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 assessment

People can be very different, they may like each other more or less, but this is not a reason to poison and gnaw each other, like spiders in a jar. People are people, reasonable people, that they are able to learn to be together and work together. Even if they are very, very different and someone seems completely wrong to someone.

We can give examples of what may seem wrong to us in other people: appearance, nationality, reactions, hobbies, etc. Give examples of how the same quality at different times and in different groups was assessed differently.

There is also a cool role-playing game about brown-eyed and blue-eyed, but it should be done by professionals. And it cleans the brains well.

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

3. Identify bullying as a group problem

When people are attacked with moral accusations, they begin to defend themselves. 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 who are the instigators of bullying, because very often they are children with narcissistic trauma, completely unable to bear shame and guilt. And they will fight like gladiators for their role as "super duper alpha".

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 in a discussion in this vein. Therefore, there is no need to lead him. 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 do not affect people, but groups, classes, companies.

Now, if a person does not wash his hands, he can get an infection and get sick. And if the group does not follow the purity of the relationship, it can also get sick - with violence. It is very sad, it is harmful and bad for everyone. And let's get urgently 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 the non-destructive "alpha", which is "responsible for the health of the class." And, most importantly, it removes the opposition between victim-rapist-witness. All in one 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 moral sense and formulate choices

The result will not be lasting if children simply bend to the formal requirements of the teacher.

The task is to bring children out of their “pack” excitement into a conscious position, to include a moral assessment of what is happening. Children can be asked to rate their contribution to the bullying illness of the class.

Let's say 1 point - this is "I never participate in this", 2 points - "I sometimes do it, but then I regret it", 3 points - "I hounded, I hound and I will poison, it's great." Let everyone show on their fingers at the same time - how many points would they give themselves?

If these are not teenagers, there will be no "threes", even among the most inveterate aggressors. In this place, in no case should you try to catch: no, in fact you are poisoning. On the contrary, you need to say: “How glad I am, my heart relieved. None of you think that baiting is good and right. Even those who did it later regretted it. This is great, so it will not be difficult for us to heal our class."

So the moral assessment of bullying becomes not external, imposed on adults, it is given by the children themselves.

If the group is very steeped in the pleasure of violence, the confrontation may be more violent. I described the reception with the "Ugly Duckling" in a book, I will retell it here briefly.

After reminding the children of the passage that describes the bullying, we can say something like this:

“Usually, when we read this 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. With the duckling, then everything will be fine, 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 the classroom, everyone has to decide: who he is in this story. Are there any among you who want to be stupid evil chickens? What's your choice?"

This same technique can help parents realize that if their child is not being bullied, but on the contrary, it is also very serious. Their children are in the role of stupid and evil chickens, and such roles dry out so hard that they begin to change their personality. Is this what they want for their children?

For a one-on-one conversation with a child who does not understand what is wrong with bullying, this is also suitable.

5. Formulate positive rules for living in a group and conclude a contract

Until now, we have been talking about how not to. It would be a mistake to stop there, because by prohibiting children from 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 start a new dynamic. And this is important to do together.

It is enough just to formulate the rules of life in a group together with the children. For example: “In our country, no one clarifies the relationship with their fists. We do not insult each other. We do not look calmly, if two fight, they are separated."

If the children are older, you can make out more complex situations, for example, that people are sensitive in different ways, and that for one is a friendly struggle, for another it can be painful. This can be reflected in such a rule, for example. "If I see that I have unwittingly touched and offended a person, I will stop doing what I am doing immediately." But too much, subtle and difficult is not necessary, at least to begin with.

The rules are written out on a large sheet and everyone votes for them. Better yet, for everyone to sign that they undertake to fulfill them. This technique is called "contracting", it works great in therapy and training groups for adults, and it is quite effective with children too.

If someone breaks the rules, they can simply silently point to a poster with his own signature.

6. Monitoring and supporting positive changes

It is very important. In our case, this was the main mistake: I talked to the director, she put someone in check, it seemed like it got better and we didn’t press it, hoping that everything would gradually get better. And it became quiet, but smoldered like a peat bog.

It is very important that the adult who takes over the situation does not abandon the group. He should regularly ask how you are doing, what is working out, 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 that looked like violence can put a pebble or stick a button. The number of pebbles determines whether today was a good day, whether this week was better than last, etc.

Yes, there are a lot of all sorts of chips, coaches and game technicians know them. You can put on performances, compose fairy tales and make collages about the "chronicle of recovery", make a "temperature graph! etc.

The bottom line is that the group continually gains a keen interest from a reputable adult and still sees victory over bullying as their common cause.

7. Harmonize the hierarchy

Now it's time to think about popularity. About the fact that everyone has recognition in something of their own, can present themselves to the group, be useful and valuable in it. Holidays, contests, talent shows, hikes, expeditions, team building games - the arsenal is rich, I don't want to 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", "bet" and "omegas", a flexible flow of roles: in this situation, the one becomes the leader, in that - the other.

One is the best at drawing, the other is joking, the third scores goals, the fourth comes up with games. The more varied and meaningful activities, the healthier the group.

Well, this is already from the "very good" series. Even if this does not work out that way, a peaceful, calm coexistence is enough, and children can be realized in other places.

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