"I wasn't beaten, but it was worse than being beaten"
Experts: Timely psychological intervention for school bullies, especially those who are bullied
Editor's note
Minors are the future of the motherland, the hope of the family.
In recent years, mental health problems have shown a trend of younger age, which needs urgent attention. The "China National Mental Health Development Report (2021-2022)" pointed out that about 14.8% of adolescents have different degrees of depression risk, of which 4.0% belong to the major depression risk group and 10.8% belong to the mild depression risk group.
Recently, the Ministry of Education and other 2023 departments jointly issued the "Special Action Plan for Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving Student Mental Health in the New Era (2025-<>)", which adheres to the educational concept of "health first" in education and teaching activities for teachers at all levels and all types of schools, and effectively puts students' mental health work in a more prominent position.
On the occasion of the "June 1" International Children's Day, the rule of law Jingwei edition plans to launch a series of reports on "Paying attention to the mental health of minors", in order to protect the mental health of minors through the rule of law and help minors grow up healthily. Stay tuned.
● School bullying, unlike short-term violence in schools, is a "long-term, persistent, secret, and undetectable" mental injury, which seriously harms the physical and mental health of minors
● The abuser vents his resentment through bullying to eliminate his frustration, or uses violence to prove his existence and gain a sense of achievement; And the victim often does not know how to ask for help, some children dare not speak up and resist after being bullied, afraid of the bully retaliation, but also do not want to alarm parents and make things bigger, but the more this is the easier it is to be bullied
● If minors commit or suffer bullying, psychological intervention shall be carried out in a timely manner for bullies, especially those being bullied, and it is recommended that the school's psychological counseling teachers do initial intervention, and if conditions permit, parents can also regularly take their children to receive professional psychological counseling; The local government should earmark funds for psychological intervention, purchase social workers, and have social workers settle in schools to carry out daily intervention
14-year-old Li Xiaomaru was bullied because of her appearance. Two years ago, she transferred from another province to a middle school in Guangdong Province and became a thorn in the side of several girls in the class. They laughed at her for being "fat" and "ugly" at the first opportunity, and deliberately messed up her belongings or hid her stationery.
At first, Li Xiaomaru comforted himself, "It's okay, I don't care." But those girls intensified, teasing her in the dormitory day after day, saying that she "looks so ugly and embarrassed to live." She went to participate in the election speech of the class cadre, and heard the girls under the podium loudly say: "How can she also run for the class cadre?" "She still learns piano?" How could she play the piano so ugly? ”
Soon, Li Xiaomaru felt that "everything you do in school is wrong." She became afraid to go to the cafeteria, dormitory or playground, or even go to the bathroom, trying to avoid the girls. Their attitude influenced other students, and once during radio gymnastics, Li Xiaomaru heard laughter behind him during the chest expansion exercise.
"Why are your breasts so big?" A boy said.
Suddenly, shame and tears defeated Li Xiaomaru. "I wasn't beaten, but it was worse than being beaten." Li Xiaomaru recently told a reporter from Rule of Law Daily.
In reality, implicit school bullying like this is not uncommon. A number of experts interviewed by reporters said that school bullying, unlike short-term violence that occurs in schools, is a "long-term, persistent, secret, and difficult to directly detect" mental harm, which seriously harms the physical and mental health of minors, and calls for further attention to be addressed.
So, how should this kind of hidden corner damage be effectively prevented? And how to weave a dense safety net to protect "young you"?
School bullying is frequent
There are many forms and few counterattacks
Once as afraid to go back to the dormitory as Li Xiaomaru, there was also Wang Meng from Shaoyang City, Hunan Province. "The dormitory is scarier than the classroom." The 32-year-old still has palpitations when she recalls the school bullying she experienced in high school.
In the dormitory, her toothbrush and towel often "drop" on the floor; The quilt that is neatly folded in the morning will be piled up on the bed at noon; She goes to the bathroom, and her roommate will quietly follow and kick the door hard; Before going to bed, she wanted to participate in her roommate's night talk, but when she opened her mouth, there was silence; If she accidentally coughs late at night, it will also trigger a long period of complaints.
What made Wang Meng most painful was the eve of the college entrance examination. She opened the quilt, and inside was a letter full of swear words that scolded her. She covered the quilt and cried all night, and the next day she entered the examination room with red and swollen eyes.
"Not surprisingly, the college entrance examination has played abnormally. At that time, I hated them, but I didn't dare to resist. Wang Meng told reporters.
Searching on social platforms, the reporter saw that many people had written about their experiences of being bullied in the dormitory: some people always "lost things", but after a few days, they appeared at someone else's; Some people are slandered for "stealing" and carry the name of "thief" for many years; As long as someone opens his mouth to speak, he will exchange a blank eye; Someone's personal belongings are often thrown in the hallway; There were also people whose beds were covered with chewed gum.
"I hated myself for being weak at that time, not fighting back, and letting them bully me." One person who was bullied wrote.
According to a survey of 2020,2022 minor students conducted by the "Research on Juvenile Legal Education Research" research group of the China Youth Research Center from 3108 to 53, 5.52% of students have experienced bullying in school, of which a high proportion includes things being stolen (8.37%), being teased or teased (2.33%), being abused (7.28%), being physically punished by teachers (3.20%), deliberately damaging things (2.19%), being discriminated against (1.15%), and not being allowed to attend classes (4.14%) ), isolated and excluded (1.13%), threatened or intimidated by violence (2.<>%), etc.
"In the face of these school bullying, 63.6% of students will report it to teachers, school leaders or parents once it occurs, 8% of students will report it every 1 to 3 days, 4.7% of students will report it every once in a while, 20.3% of students will report if the same thing happens again, 1.5% of students will wait for other students to report it again, and 1.9% of students never report it." Zhang Xiaobing, head of the Children's Research Institute and associate researcher at the China Youth Research Center, told reporters.
Serious harm to physical and mental health
Psychological wounds are difficult to heal
In 2017, the Ministry of Education and 11 other departments jointly issued the "Plan for Strengthening the Comprehensive Management of Bullying of Primary and Secondary School Students", which clearly defined the concept of "bullying", juxtaposed bullying and violence, and added the content of implicit bullying, including verbal bullying and social bullying, in addition to more intuitive and aggressive violent attacks. In real life, verbal bullying is usually manifested as ridicule, intimidation and personality insults; Social bullying systematically isolates and excludes victims through partnership exclusion, pranks, harassment, etc.
A number of interviewees who have experienced school bullying pointed out that although hidden bullying generally does not cause trauma, it can cause serious psychological harm.
After the college entrance examination, Wang Meng became more and more miserable, and the depression that had accumulated for a long time approached the critical value. In the days when she volunteered, she did not go to school, locked herself at home for a week, her parents and teachers tried to enlighten her, but she refused, "instinctively resisted the world, did not want to communicate with them, even if communication was useless, they did not believe me, but felt 'Isn't it just a few bad words said by classmates', 'As for such a fuss', 'The psychology is too fragile'." ”
Subsequently, Wang Meng went to the hospital for examination and diagnosed depression. She refused to see people, and if she had to go out, she would cover her face tightly. On many sleepless nights, she self-harmed with a blade, hoping that the physical pain would eliminate the pain in her heart. She hid at home and played games all night, trying to find some friends to chat with online.
"At that time, I repeatedly asked myself, was it really my mistake? Am I really an unworthy person? After going to college, Wang Meng finally came out, but the experience of being bullied as a teenager often made her afraid, "This kind of injury may not heal in a lifetime."
Li Jingsi, a national second-level psychological counselor, told reporters that those children who were bullied in childhood will encounter greater psychological distress when they grow up, and there is a risk of depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment and even suicide.
"The stress caused by bullying on the victim is 'written' into the subconscious, triggering psychological or physical stress, triggering emotional and environmental sensitivity, and even leading to protracted psychosomatic diseases. If these painful signs that appear in life in their early years are not cured, they can also become a significant source of psychological problems when they grow up. In addition, if a person is initially bullied, if not effectively curbed, it may bring more harm from peers or adults, and severe bullying is likely to create a cycle of victimization that lasts for a lifetime, and the 'deformed positioning' of others and self-perception may also affect more areas of life. Li Jingsi said.
Students who commit serious bullying are also prone to the road of breaking the law and committing crimes if they are not effectively educated and controlled. According to the White Paper on Juvenile Procuratorial Work (2021) released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, from 2017 to 2021, the number of people approved by the procuratorate for arresting school bullying and violent crimes was 4157,2785, 1667,583, 581,<>, <> and <>, respectively.
Homeschooling is absent
The seeds of violence are planted in the heart
"Children's behavior is a psychological projection, and 97% of school bullying under the 'iceberg' is not seen." Lin Lin, president of the Hefei Youth Psychology Research Association in Anhui Province, believes that the biggest feature of psychology is lag, which may be a problem a few years ago that leads to bullying a few years later. The violent seeds of bullying in schools often germinate under the combined influence of the family and social environment.
Li Jingsi found through research that most of the bullies and bullies come from families that are too doting or too strict, and families that neglect children too much, and such parent-child relationships will make children's interpersonal skills and self-perception different from normal, such as thinking that they are too strong and self-respecting, or think that they are too weak and unable to resist. Although school bullying occurs between children, it is also a problem for adults, and for some reason, adults often choose to ignore things that are not conducive to them, or delay in solving them.
According to Pi Yijun, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law and director of the Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Research Center, both perpetrators and victims of school bullying show a lack of rational thinking when they encounter problems. The abuser vents his resentment through bullying to eliminate his frustration, or uses violence to prove his existence and gain a sense of achievement; And the victim often does not know how to ask for help, some children dare not speak up and resist after being bullied, afraid of the bully retaliation, but also do not want to alarm parents and make things bigger, but the more this is the easier it is to be bullied.
"In the face of school bullying, some schools choose to calm down the situation, and some schools lack relevant norms, and only pay lip service to stopping school bullying, and do not implement it." Pi Yijun said.
Ren Haitao, a professor at East China Normal University's Law School and deputy director of the Research Center for the Protection of Juvenile Schools, has long been concerned about this problem, and he has found that most families and schools lack education on school bullying, and students do not know what school bullying is or who to go to after bullying occurs. "The campus is a microcosm of the external society, a reflection of the adult world, and a direct reflection of the educational environment, and schools often intervene after bullying occurs. In addition, some schools adopt too traditional handling methods, mainly criticizing and punishing bullies, without trying to systematically understand the relationship between bullies and bullies, and the causes behind bullying, and even in some schools, teachers use beatings to educate students. ”
Wang Xi, a teacher at a middle school in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, has a deep understanding of this. She noticed that many teachers avoid or pay little attention to the phenomenon of bullying in schools, and the school does not provide relevant training, teachers cannot detect such phenomena at the first time, and even if they do, there is no good way to reconcile and deal with it, and even cannot understand the situation of both sides of the bullying, which also leads to some students being bullied and unwilling to turn to teachers; At the same time, due to the lack of training and legal education, students do not know whether they have been bullied or not, whether to seek help, and some students even think that they are under age and do not have to bear criminal responsibility after bullying others. In addition, the school's counseling room was also in vain, and she visited it several times, most of the time behind closed doors.
Zhang Xiaobing's survey results show that among the students who chose not to report, 39.8% of the students said that it was a trivial matter and not worth reporting, some students thought that the report could not solve the problem, and more than 25% did not know how to report.
The criteria for recognition are referred to as single
Psychological damage is often overlooked
School bullying stings people's nerves, and the relevant departments are also increasing their efforts to rectify such phenomena.
In April 2018, the Office of the Education Supervision Commission of the State Council issued the Notice on Carrying out the Implementation Year of Bullying Prevention and Control for Primary and Secondary School Students, requiring all schools in all regions to clarify the work institutions, office phones and implementation plans for the prevention and control of student bullying, and refine the implementation of various measures for the prevention and control of student bullying.
In October 2020, the Law on the Protection of Minors was amended and passed, which clearly stipulates that schools should establish a student bullying prevention and control system.
On September 2021, 9, the "Provisions on the Protection of Minors in Schools" came into force, further enumerating what constitutes school bullying, including the intentional or malicious beating, kicking, slapping, scratching, pushing, pulling of the other party by the party who has the advantage in terms of age, body or number of students, violating the personal dignity of others by means of insults, ridicule, mockery, sarcasm, insulting nicknames, robbing, forcibly demanding or deliberately destroying other people's property, maliciously excluding and isolating others, Fabricating facts to slander others, spreading rumors or misinformation, slandering others, maliciously spreading others' privacy, etc. through the Internet or other information dissemination methods.
In March 2023, the Department of Education of Hunan Province issued the Implementation Plan for the Special Governance Action for the Prevention of Bullying by Primary and Secondary School Students in the Education System of Hunan Province, which clarified that 3 behaviors constitute bullying in schools and proposed 5 measures to prevent and control bullying in schools. The special governance action lasted until October 10 this year.
Although the problem of school bullying has been continuously called for attention to be solved, many industry insiders pointed out that the discovery, identification and treatment of school bullying still need to be further refined.
"There is still a lack of scientific and authoritative classification, and what kind of behavior can be identified as school bullying, and how it differs from fights between classmates and adolescent pranks, all need to be scientifically determined." Pi Yijun said that the first is the classification of means, and the second is the determination of harm, whether it is physical injury, property damage or mental injury, and the degree of harm requires professional assessment.
He told reporters that the current determination of the consequences of harm mainly depends on the degree of physical injury, and often ignores the psychological and spiritual harm to minors. For example, the bully isolates, ridicules, and discriminates against the bullied, and after the identification, there may not be any minor injuries, but it causes serious psychological damage.
Once school bullying occurs
Timely psychological intervention
A number of educational, psychological and legal professionals have called for efforts from various aspects to weave a dense student safety protection net.
Zhang Xiaobing suggested that the school hire teachers who specialize in handling students' rights and interests incidents, and regularly understand and communicate with the class teacher about students' personality, daily behavior and other performance, and form students' daily behavior files; At the same time, through the observation of public places such as playgrounds and libraries with psychological counselors, compare, analyze and judge students' abnormal performance, communicate with parents and other guardians in a timely manner, and understand students' ideological dynamics and emotional state; Students can also be invited to conduct small-scale focus group interviews from time to time, the number of which is controlled to 4 to 8 people, to understand students' behavior and related situations; Set up a bullying mailbox, or cater to students' interests, invite students to make a blind box of bullying, encourage students to write the bullying content into the blind box, and the teacher can open it to check it so that they can understand the follow-up situation.
"Improve the reporting chain and system construction of special students-class teachers/teaching teachers-psychological counseling teachers-rights and interests protection teachers-school leaders, regularly popularize the reporting procedure, feedback the report results, and encourage more students to participate and not be 'bystanders'." Include anti-school bullying content in teacher training to help teachers master the basic methods for identifying school bullying, early intervention methods, and later disposal procedures. Zhang Xiaobing said.
She believes that the prevention and treatment of school bullying also requires the active action of judicial organs, such as regularly releasing typical cases of "school bullying", gradually forming guiding cases of school bullying, and compiling and distributing them into books and converting them into children's language as primary and secondary school law popularization books; The system of vice-principals for rule of law can also be used to regularly conduct lively and interesting education on the rule of law in primary and secondary schools, explaining the content and importance of basic rights such as the right to life, the right to health, and human dignity; Publish typical cases of the "mandatory reporting system", listing the circumstances in which reporting is not mandatory and the corresponding legal responsibilities, and urging teachers and other workers who have close contact with minors to perform mandatory reporting obligations in a timely manner; Regularly set up family education guidance courses, popularize relevant laws and regulations for parents, and guide parents to actively practice the principle that is most beneficial to minors.
Pi Yijun proposed to create an atmosphere of "zero tolerance for bullying in schools", where students who bully others should reflect in front of the whole class, and let their parents apologize to the bullied students in public to eliminate the impact. Children who bully others may also have the experience of being bullied, they are weak at heart, and they want to use utilitarian methods to obtain false friendships. If parents find that their child is bullying others, they must first clearly express that this is not right, tell the child to understand the feelings of others, and reflect on their own education.
"It is the responsibility of society to solve the problems that arise in adolescents." Pi Yijun called on schools to formulate a campus convention on the prevention of school bullying, which schools can do according to the actual situation, govern the school with rules, and form an atmosphere where all employees participate in resisting school bullying and not being bystanders.
Li Jingsi believes that bystander behavior in school bullying can be improved through early empathy cultivation, and teachers and parents can cultivate empathy in a situation by encouraging children to be righteous and put themselves in a situation, so that they know how to protect themselves and others.
If minors commit or suffer bullying, psychological intervention should be carried out in a timely manner for the bully, especially the bullied.
"It is recommended that the school's psychological counseling teachers do initial intervention, and if conditions permit, parents can also regularly take their children to receive professional psychological counseling; The local government should earmark funds for psychological intervention, purchase social workers, and have social workers settle in schools to carry out daily intervention. Zhang Xiaobing said that in her research, she also found that girls who did not know how to report were 7.5% higher than boys, rural students were 7.2% higher than urban students, and rural students who were threatened not to report were 3.3% higher than urban students.
(Li Xiaomaru, Wang Meng, and Wang Xi are pseudonyms in the text)
(Rule of Law Daily reporter Wen Lijuan)