My child is an aggressor: Stories about children who have hounded others
We often talk about bullying victims, but rarely raise the question of why aggressors behave this way. The sources of such behavior of the child, among other things, may be rudeness or domestic violence, which are broadcast vertically, or the inattention of parents who do not notice the problem. For some parents, the aggressive behavior of the child comes with a traumatic surprise - because until now it seemed to them that they are doing everything correctly. We publish three stories in which the relatives of children who participated in the persecution, tell about their views on education and how they tried to resolve the conflict.
In the class where my son studies, there is a boy who got everyone - many are afraid to sit with him at the same desk. He is really aggressive: he can push him down the stairs, take a broom and chase other children with him. Physically, he is stronger and larger than other children - although when I wrote a post about it, commentators noted that it does not matter, he is also a child. But it seems to me that for this story it is important that this boy is bigger and stronger than others. The teacher has always tried to somehow integrate it into the children's society. She explained that his nervous system was just arranged in such a way that it happened, and you need to try to be friends with him. In general, she did not stay away from the conflict. The boy did not hesitate to swear and behave aggressively with the teacher, it came up to go to the director with his mother. But the reality is that there are thirty-four children in the classroom, and it’s difficult to completely take responsibility for everything on the teacher.
Children, as I understood after talking with my son, tried to cope with the situation in different ways. For example, when a bully climbed to one of the children, they stood in front of him with a wall, fenced in, pushed him away from the victim. They talked to him, tried a thousand options, but it was all useless. Parents did not try to talk to the mother of this child. When he broke my points glasses during the game, I also did not clarify the relationship. In some conflicts that still aroused the indignation of the victims, the boy’s mother protected him. And once she called me herself and said that my child organized a harassment against her son. She did not call it the word "persecution", there were not any terrible accusations in her words. She just asked me to have a conversation with my child. And then it turned out that the situation is difficult - I understand that it was a real persecution, and I will tell you what it was.
My son agreed with a classmate, someone else joined them, and they decided to fight the offender with his own methods. We went after him and shouted something like: "Come on, get well!" Some phrase they had heard somewhere, there was no malicious intent in it. But the boy took it as an insult because of the weight. Of course, he looks like a victim in this situation. My son is capable of provocation, he has a keen sense of justice, not always moderate. The method he invented seemed to work on this boy. But at the same time, I understand that in modern society such things are unacceptable. We cannot encourage such methods of struggle in our children, it humiliates, first of all, the fighters themselves. This is a low way, albeit a good one. Children's society is not burdened with ethical norms: for them the method that operates is a good method, and my son still does not fully understand what is wrong here.
I know what harassment is, I saw her from the side when I was in school, but I didn’t expect to encounter her this way. For me it was a break of patterns: when you read posts, you see - here are the bad ones, here are the good ones. But, like so much in life, it was not so linear. Because of the non-intervention of adults, children themselves look for any effective ways to stand up for themselves - and sometimes this turns into harassment. My son tried to be friends and play with this boy, a week before the episode of bullying he wanted to invite him to his birthday: some parents said they would not let their children go if he was there. I was surprised that someone decides with whom to be friends or not to be friends of their children. Having learned about everything that was happening, I hurried to intervene - we talked with him for several days. The son no longer attempted "punishment." I asked him to simply not do this, promised that we would work on this problem. I called the boy's mom, said: "Yes, I know about this situation and I think that my child behaved incorrectly." A couple of weeks we went abroad, and everything was hesitated.
My son did not just engage in persecution — he was its initiator. This is not an excuse, but his motives were related to the destruction of his sense of justice and a basic sense of security. It is not yet clear whether we managed to figure it out or not. My child has a favorite word “okay”: he seems to agree, but he does it his own way. But if for him, in principle, such methods of struggle are permissible, apparently, there is something in his character, with which he will have to work for a long time, and something that will be restrained solely by his will and our explanations. I hope, it will be possible to instill in him humanistic values and the idea of the inadmissibility of the humiliation of other people.
In the suburban town of Schelkovo, which was formed around several factories, the population is, respectively, of a worker-peasant type. Children from such families study in the 5th "E" class where my brother goes. Children are not particularly interested in studying, because the “E” class lacks teachers, and in general they have just entered the transitional age, and they are concerned about communicating with each other. In principle, in a children's team, quite adequate people divide normal relations and leadership. But occasionally two people come to class who are at home - two or three times a week, for a few lessons. They began this persecution. I hurt a boy who has autism. All the other children, although they consider him strange, have become accustomed; after all, he has been studying with them since the first grade.
The first aggressor boy is from a heavily drinking family, he comes to school very rarely. It was not his parents who transferred him to home schooling, but a teacher who led them up to the fifth grade, because he came to school untidy and smelled bad of him. So she turned the children against him - no one communicates with him, because he is a “homeless person”. And communication is necessary for him, the school is the only place where people pay attention to him. The attention of the victim of bullying is also attention. The second is some not entirely prosperous hooligan, he is no different in mental abilities. Nobody knows his parents, because they don’t go to school. But they communicate normally with the first bully, they have a tandem.
The third witcher, about whom I did not initially think, is a boy who constantly attends school. Very closed, irritable. Small, with glasses, unlike the victim (he is very tall and strong). He comes to school, he can begin to shout his way with screams - for example, so that he can give up the place he likes. His parents seem to be very tough, and it is possible that he adopts this aggression from them. Clears up, as he cannot resist to parents, of course, cannot.
My brother was not the instigator of the persecution, but participated in it. It all started with a calling and teasing, but ended with a broken finger. The victim does not want to give anyone surrender, he does not accept violence in principle. His mother simply does not leave school and watches him. The bulk of classmates pretend that they do not care.
We tried to fight the harassment, came to school at the school hour. We are me as a representative of the power structure and my mother, a psychologist by profession. They told the children about bullying, that words are one thing, and actions are another. I scared them that the prison was crying for them, because I knew such people. We tried to tell them something about autism, but it turned out very awry: our mother studied at the university and considers autism to be a pathology. I think this is identity. Maybe the children understood something - we tried to explain that it is impossible to stand aside if someone is being bullied. The brother came home in the evening and said: "I will not intercede for him anyway." He is afraid of losing his position.
I do not consider my son an aggressor. I had a Facebook post - about how my son was teasing in the locker room, calling the other boy a wimp. He did not attack, did not beat him, it was the custom to communicate with this boy. But I did not like that such a "conversation" was possible at all. It is unpleasant for me, in principle, that there are such conversations between children, that the son comes home and tells me: this fat one, this one, this one, this bad guy. In my family, such behavior — to offend someone — was never the norm. It seems to me uncultured, unacceptable, for example, just to come up and give someone a foot on the bottom. And my husband, while we were not yet divorced, said that it was normal.
This behavior is common in boys. There are children about whom it can be said that they are really aggressive. And my son just confused the idea of what is good and what is bad. This is rather a bullying, he tries to joke, but sometimes it turns out excessively. These are not actions filled with anger. I discussed this with my child, and he told me that all children behave this way. Perhaps something in his demeanor he learned from his father.
I watched my son communicate with the boy, whom I told about at the beginning, outside the kindergarten - they calmly roll each other around the ground. I see that it doesn’t cause discomfort to children, it’s such a game. This is different from aggression, which has a hidden reason - I saw children driven by anger. True, I noticed that educators and teachers are very calm about how children bully. Maybe they are afraid of the parents' response, or maybe they don’t understand and do not try to understand where the line between children's games and harassment is.
Nevertheless, I try to explain to my child how to behave badly. There were difficult situations. Once at school a meeting of parents of future first-graders took place, adults came with children. My son started pestering one boy, kicking him slightly with his knee. The boy sluggishly kicked off, and his mother began to panic. I tried to explain that they were playing this way, she replied that it was a bad game. I agree with her, but they have such a style of communication. It is difficult to control, because children draw examples of such behavior from the TV. The characters of many modern cartoons are prone to domination and always compete. Secondly, our children, who grow up in prosperous families, have no trouble in life. They did not buy a toy, did not give a chocolate bar - but no serious deprivation. They do not know what death is, what it is to experience need. As a child, I suffered terribly when a cat died, and they perceive it without horror. And often they do not understand at all that someone can be done badly or painfully.