Under the topic "Have you ever been bullied on campus?", some netizens took the initiative to uncover the scars in their childhood memories, and in thousands of posts and replies, the experience of being isolated, excluded, and beaten and scolded is shocking, but this is only the tip of the iceberg of campus bullying.
According to data from 144 countries released by UNESCO in 2019, on average, 1 in 3 students in the world has experienced bullying at school.
School bullying
It happened "for no reason"
"I have been bullied since the second year of junior high school, when I was about thirteen or fourteen years old. Once, when I was out of school, I just walked a few steps outside the school, and I was covered by a school uniform, and I didn't say what the reason was, several people took turns to hit me on the head, and they were all the 'little bullies' in the school. 30-year-old Wu Hui recalls that this is a scene that she still can't forget.
Wang Kui, an associate researcher at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a second-level psychological counselor, believes that minors may improve or confirm their "social status" through bullying, and some bullies choose to "follow the trend" because they are afraid of being excluded and bullied.
"Later, my good friend also started to violently attack me, and even tore up the painting I gave her and threw it into the milk tea, and then spilled the milk tea into my drawer. Wu Hui couldn't figure out why her good friend did this.
"I don't feel like there's any source, probably because I'm new here, and the initiator finds it funny, likes to conquer people and bully people. Cheng Wei experienced school bullying in the fourth grade, every night after self-study, after returning to the dormitory, the female classmates in the dormitory asked her to take off her clothes, and once a boy suddenly broke into the dormitory and witnessed all this, Cheng Wei unforgettable the feeling of being humiliated.
Sun Jinlu, an assistant professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Public Administration) at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, concluded through long-term research that the psychological needs of underage bullies can be divided into five types: intentional playfulness, attention-grabbing, catharsis, peer belonging, and property acquisition.
Growing up being bullied:
"The body is out of danger and the psyche is still inflamed"
Wang Kui introduced that the impact of school bullying on the bullied will not end with the termination of bullying, and it is likely to be lifelong.
Since experiencing school bullying, Wu Hui is very sensitive to anyone and everything, afraid that she will say the wrong thing, even if some things have nothing to do with her, she will first fall into internal friction and self-blame, and she is afraid to do things, and is extremely insecure. In college, she realized she was already suffering from depression. After continuous self-regulation, Wu Hui gradually relieved her depression, and her sports and interests enriched her spiritual world. However, until now, whenever she sees the news of school bullying, she is still very angry and even wants to cry.
School bullying is like broken glass for the victim's psychology, and once it happens, it is difficult to recover. In the cases that Sun Jinlu has been exposed to before, the bullied minors have generally been left with psychological trauma, the self-evaluation system has been damaged, which has seriously affected the improvement of personal happiness and quality of life, and some have serious consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Cheng Wei used to be an outgoing and cheerful girl in everyone's eyes, "Since then, I have been very introverted. It's just that I pretend that nothing happened in front of my family, and when I talk to my friends and teachers, I actually tremble unconsciously, and only I know how nervous I am. When she was in college, Cheng Wei had suicidal thoughts, but she dispelled this idea in time, "What can't kill me will eventually make me stronger."
According to Sun, school bullying incidents may bring some stress reactions to victims, and these reactions will also be generalized by them to all aspects of life, so that they will encounter some difficulties in establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, such as social avoidance or strained relationships with peers. She advises victims to seek treatment from a professional psychological counseling team to improve their psychological state through behavioral training.
"If I have to choose again, I won't tell my parents and teachers"
"I don't like to make a big deal out of it, and I don't feel like there's anyone standing by me. Even if I told them, it wouldn't be of any use, and it would only make those who bullied me even worse. Even if Wu Hui was given another chance to go back to the past, she was still reluctant to tell her parents about being bullied.
After Wu Hui was bullied by her classmates, the first thing she told was her senior brother, who found a few tall classmates to escort her to and from school, and indeed "scared off" some classmates who wanted to bully her outside the school, but the bullying that occurred in the school continued......
"Bear it alone" is the choice of almost every school bullying victim, why would a minor choose to face this pressure alone?
Sun Jinlu's survey found that 78.7% of the students believed that the teacher's intervention could not solve the problem fundamentally, and even led to increased retaliation. Once a child who is bullied has a strong sense of shame, when he can't face this emotion and can't find help from others, he will choose to hide it in his heart.
"I was embarrassed to tell my parents that I was really ashamed and I wanted to solve this problem myself, but I couldn't solve it, so I endured it until I finally succeeded in changing dorms, and the matter was over for me. Cheng Wei said. However, the bullying of the roommate, with Cheng Wei's departure, was transferred to the next girl who moved in.
Endless bullying in schools breaks down the walls of trust for those who are being bullied, and it's not that they don't want to ask for help, but they're just coping with it in the way they think is right.
According to Sun Jinlu's analysis, children who are easily bullied usually lack support and trust in social and family relationships. Moreover, there is an unwritten "rule" among minors: what happens between them, it must be resolved between them, and if it is told to parents, teachers, etc., it will be considered a betrayal and whistleblowing.
"Child, it's not your fault"
According to Wang Kui's observations, the bullied are often weak in one aspect of the other, such as poor social interaction, weak physique, too fat, low self-esteem, etc., and they know that they have these "weaknesses", which leads them to mistakenly find the reason for themselves.
"Bullying tends to happen more insidiously, but there are still behaviors and phenomena that can provide clues for attentive parents and teachers. Wang Kui sorted out some common characteristics of bullied people: depressed mood, unexplained scars on the body, always losing clothes or belongings, suddenly having poor sleep, and even waking up at night from nightmares, difficulty concentrating, sudden decline in academic performance, finding various reasons not to go to school, suddenly unwilling to contact former friends, avoiding social interactions, blaming himself for being useless, and so on. If you find that your child has the above characteristics, you should keep abreast of the situation and actively establish communication with your child.
Wang Kui suggested that in the process of dealing with children being bullied, adults need to give the bullied person 100 percent certainty that being bullied is not his fault, but the fault lies with the bully. Specifically avoid saying "if you...... "Don't blame the child for not telling you before, don't blame the child for not having the courage to resist, such language itself lacks empathy, implying that the child who is being bullied needs to be responsible for the bullying behavior.
"Parents should establish an open communication environment so that children are willing to talk freely and easily with their families when they encounter problems, guide their children to understand the essence of bullying in school, encourage them to stand up bravely when they encounter bullying, and ensure that parents can give them adequate support. Sun Jinlu suggested.
In addition, if you want to try to fight back bravely, you also need to have a certain foundation, such as having a strong body and learning some ways to protect yourself. Sun Jinlu reminded that if you have been bullied, you can try to collect evidence, and once you think that there is no way to deal with it on campus, you can consider protecting yourself through legal means.
Bullies are often "victims" as well
School bullying not only has a negative impact on the victim, but also has a great negative impact on the development of the bully.
"Parents should never rejoice that their child is a bully and think that he will not suffer in the future. Sun Jinlu mentioned that violence is a process of accumulation and intensification, and if the best time for correction is missed, the bullies may enter society in the future, and the bullies may commit more serious bullying behaviors, or even involve criminal offenses.
Wang Kui introduced that bullies are more likely to drink heavily as adults and are more likely to get involved in fights. As early as the 70s of the 20th century, Norwegian scholar Dan Olweus (Dan Olweus) tracked the study of Swedish children and adolescents showed that the crime rate of bullies is higher in adulthood, about 60% of bullies have at least one criminal experience before the age of 24, and 35%-40% of bullies have three or more criminal experiences before the age of 24. It can be seen that the behavior and psychological correction of bullies is even more crucial.
For students who participate in school bullying, families, schools, and even society should promptly correct them, and through continuous education, cultivate minors' qualities of tolerance, kindness, and respect for others, and build a healthy campus culture and environment.
Schools are the first front, but not the only one
Schools must be the most important part of stopping school bullying from happening. Sun believes that schools should have a clear anti-bullying policy, clarify how the school will deal with bullying incidents, and make sure that students, parents and all staff are aware so that everyone can stand up and stop it. For school bullying incidents that have already occurred, schools can provide some support services for counselors or professional counselors to help those victims of school bullying heal their psychological wounds.
The prevention and control of school bullying is a very complex task, which requires the cooperation and efforts of minors, parents, schools, society and other parties to jointly protect the physical and mental health of minors.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names have been changed)
Source: CCTV