Throughout childhood and adolescence we spend a large amount of our time at school. This makes classrooms not only the space in which to acquire knowledge, but also the environment in which to acquire values, configure a certain vision of the world and forge the foundations of personality.
Under ideal conditions, all students should be able to go to class feeling comfortable and safe, making their school years full of satisfaction. However, the reality of many of them is far from this ideal situation. Many children and adolescents suffer first-hand bullying, also known as bullying. This form of violence, until recently minimized and made invisible, constitutes a serious problem that can deeply damage the mental health of the victims, leaving long-term consequences.
Fortunately, bullying has begun to be recognized as a problem that concerns the entire educational system Makeup has ceased to be a simple dispute between colleagues, giving rise to the creation of intervention protocols that tackle the problem as early as possible. Furthermore, this has been combined with preventive measures that try to educate students in values such as cooperation, empathy and friendship.
Despite these important advances, bullying continues to be a very common problem in schools. Its detection is usually relatively late, since it is an elusive phenomenon whose detection is not always easy. Violence towards a partner cannot only be expressed through insults and hits. Other less obvious strategies can also deeply harm the victim, making it difficult for adults around them to recognize the bullying.
In this article We will focus on those forms of bullying that tend to go unnoticed
Before delving into the most difficult forms of bullying to detect, it is important to clarify what bullying is.
Bullying is a type of systematic violence that takes place between peers in the same school environment. The aggressor can cause suffering in the victim verbally, physically, psychologically and even sexually.
Bullying does not refer to specific, time-limited attacks. Rather, It encompasses that type of repeated violence that is usually carried out following a certain modus operandi However, when a single violent event occurs from one or more classmates towards another, the school must always analyze what happens to take measures and prevent this episode from turning into full-blown bullying.
Bullying is characterized by the asymmetry of power between victim and aggressor. This is not a problem of coexistence or a conflict between equals. The aggressor is located above the person who is harassed in one way or another, either because he is older, more powerful, or physically stronger.
Bullying is often talked about as a minor issue for children. However, this belief is greatly removed from reality. Bullying is a serious problem that deeply damages the well-being of the victim, who can be marked in the short and long term by this experience.
The systematic nature of this form of violence means that the victim ends up developing what is known as learned helplessness. After living the same situation day after day, he ends up accepting that he cannot do anything to defend himself from the attacks. This causes him to adopt a posture of complete submission and blocking, so that he lives the reality of himself as a bird trapped in a cage that he is not able to open.
Facing daily attacks with no possibility of escape seriously damages the child’s self-esteem, social skills and world view In the most severe cases, the victim may assimilate that he deserves the mistreatment of his peers because he is worthless. He internalizes the insults that come to him from the outside as his own voice that damages his self-concept, not to mention the normalization of violence within the framework of relationships.
The victim’s emotional suffering can become evident through signs such as increased irritability, somatizations (for example, stomach pain or headache), nightmares, enuresis, sadness and fear. When there is physical violence, marks such as bruises or wounds may appear without apparent explanation.
A common mistake when addressing bullying has to do with focusing on the victim, ignoring the role of the aggressor. Although it is evident that someone who is bullied needs specific attention, understanding why one minor has harassed the other is equally relevant to correcting her behavior and preventing it from recurring. In fact, many children who bully their peers do nothing more than imitate violent behavior models that they observe at home. Thus, bullying can be the alarm signal to protect that child from the violence that he himself may be suffering at home.
Bullying is an extremely common problem, which occurs equally in all types of educational centers. For years, the obligation of schools and institutes to always act to try to stop this form of violence has been recognized. Furthermore, in cases recognized as harassment, a specific action protocol must be implemented. Faced with a situation like this, the parents of the victims are usually inclined to change their children to another center. However, this tactic should never be the first solution tried.
It is always key to try to resolve harassment in the center where it originated. When the victim is transferred to another center, this can convey to her that she is the problem and that what has happened is her responsibility. Besides, A change of center can be a challenge for a minor who has suffered violence and has seen his relational schemes with peers disrupted, as well as his self-esteem and security. In addition, resolving the root issue also prevents other students from suffering the same situation in the future.
Unfortunately, there are still many centers that do not fulfill their responsibility. There is still a lot of work pending to eradicate bullying; the process of detecting this form of violence in classrooms still needs to be further refined.
3 variants of bullying that usually go unnoticed
Whenever we talk about violence we assume that it manifests itself in the form of obvious actions, such as hitting or insults. However, bullying can take shape in many ways, some so subtle that they don’t even catch the attention of adults.
1. Isolation and social rejection
A very common form of bullying has to do with isolation and rejection of the victim. The affected minor may not be receiving insults or physical attacks, but he is not accepted into the group nor is he allowed to participate in joint activities with others. In the moments of play he is not allowed and, when he is allowed to participate, the attempt is made to make him feel less than the rest.
The victim feels totally alone, because no one speaks to him or offers him company In general, you may have the constant feeling of being ignored or of being practically invisible to your colleagues. This isolation usually begins with a group of classmates who manipulate and convince the rest of the class not to interact with the victim. In the absence of explicit aggression, adults may ignore that there is a problem and even blame the student himself for not having support around him.
The arrival of new technologies has opened a new channel for minors who attack their peers. Although bullying has always been defined as violence that takes place at school, the appearance of social networks in the equation has forced us to consider other scenarios.
So, Bullying can also take place between peers outside the physical boundaries of the school through these platforms In fact, online harassment can be even more devastating than that which occurs in person, since aggressors can act anonymously and access their victim whenever they wish.
The minor who suffers this violence cannot even feel comfortable at home, as he is attacked online in multiple ways. Among the different tactics are: sending insulting messages, making hurtful videos or montages, disseminating photos of the victim without their consent or making public criticism of them. All of this with the ultimate goal of humiliating the victim and instilling pain.
3. Nicknames, practical jokes and rumors
Verbal bullying can be devastating and yet go undetected. Rumors can spread among colleagues about the victim, giving her “funny” nicknames against her will and even making her the focus of various practical jokes. The aggressors They may even resort to gaslight-type violence to make the affected partner feel that their discomfort is not valid and that, if it appears, it is his fault. For example, they may tell him that he is very boring for not wanting to accept jokes, that he lacks a sense of humor, or that he is paranoid for thinking that others are going against him.
