Every person in their lifetime can be bullied at school or at work. However, when a child or teenager is confronted with it, he does not necessarily have the weapons to protect himself. This subject has also been at the center of the concerns of the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye since he took office last year. For the latter, the problem must be taken from another angle. This is why he has been proposing since Monday that the harasser be transferred to another establishment instead of the harassed student, as part of a “regulatory change”.
But you still need to know that your child is a victim, because it is not always easy to talk about it. In Well done for you, the doctor of psychology Saverio Tomasella helps to detect the signs. First, according to the doctor, if adults obviously harass, and especially in the professional world, it is more often concealed, for the sake of “hiding that we are hurting someone”. However, the harassment shown by children and adolescents is much more “raw, raw, direct and frontal”, which can lead to a state of stupefaction and fear in those who experience it.
A difference in treatment between girls and boys
So how do you know if your child is at risk of being bullied? First of all, it is important to remember that there is no typical profile and unfortunately everyone can experience it. Nevertheless, certain tendencies stand out: if your child has the habit of being “first in the class”, of often answering the teacher’s questions and of wanting to be well seen by the latter, there is a greater risk that he or the target of nastiness from students who do less well, for example. “But there are not only the first and the first of the class. There is also the small difference, a different accent, a region, a hair color…”
The doctor of psychology also analyzes a difference in treatment between girls and boys, who now harass equally, unlike previous generations. “Now it’s 50-50. What we’ve noticed is that boys bully more physically. And girls, it’s reputation, it’s rumors, teasing and it’s social media .” Also, the danger of the lead/follower dynamic should not be overlooked. “There are those who will encourage, even stimulate the leader, the main bully, and others who will on the contrary be silent witnesses, who are perhaps frightened by what they see, and who dare not not intervene for fear of being the next victim.”
What signs and clues can we notice?
But a question always torments the minds of parents who discover the harassment of their child: why did he keep silent? Most of the time, this question hides three main reasons, as Saverio Tomasella states. “The fear of reprisals is very important, the fact of being ashamed also which prevents you from going to say ‘I am harassed or annoyed’. And then there is this stupefaction which, after the jokes, after the jostling, after the bad physical treatments, results in a moment when the person who is intimidated, girl or boy, is in shock”, laments the doctor, before continuing: “His nervous system is frozen, that is to say immobilized. And in these case, whether adult, child or adolescent, we can no longer react.
So that brings us to one of the biggest signs that your child is being bullied, the drop in grades and thus interest in school, college, or high school. Inevitably follow other signals, brutal, but no less difficult to detect in your child. If harassed, he may show insomnia, a loss of appetite and therefore eating disorders, the lack of desire to go to his school, where to make sure to get there on time and not in advance… But it is not enough to notice these clues, because everything rests in the help that one must bring to his child.
How to react ?
For Dr. Tomasella, a first way to start the subject is to ask how his school life is going, “how is it in class? How is it in the playground? How is it in sports?”. In the event that no response is forthcoming, “we can say ‘You know, my dear, my dear, I feel that something is wrong at the moment. You don’t have to tell me about it today. , but know that I am at your disposal at all times, night and day’. Because sometimes there are despairs that are born at night”, he specifies. “‘I’m here, you can come and wake me up if you need to, call me anytime, or text me. If you have a problem, I’m here for you. Tell me about it.'” One beneficial initiative, whatever its outcome: your child will know that he can count on you and that he has your most benevolent ear.