Bullying at school: "Why don't you fight back?"

A girl in my class and I were sitting on the bed at her house when the question came up. I really didn't want to, but I said "yes". I thought she'd be nicer to me then. And then she cut off ten centimeters on half of the head. Allegedly by accident; she didn't apologize. When I got home I didn't want Mom to see it. But of course she noticed anyway.

Actually, I'm afraid every day at school that something will happen again. That the others get up when I sit down with them in the canteen. That I get sayings like "Are you going to cry right now?" That they never fit me in basketball basketball and it's still my fault if we lose. Even when I'm not in school, I have no rest. Then I'm invited to the Halloween party and they uninvite them shortly beforehand and they post pictures of how great it was or who they are friends with. I feel like they are doing this on purpose to make me sad. But I don't like the word bullying; somehow it sounds too strong for me.

It is essentially about two girls; with the third, I'm not sure if she really wants to be friends with me because she likes me. Sometimes everything is fine for a while, we meet during the holidays and I think it's over now and maybe we're all friends after all. But then from one day to the next I'm outside and at the bottom again. That always hits me hard. Then I really think about everything, but I can't think of anything I did wrong. If I knew, I could change it. I try not to let it show, but when you're sad and disappointed, it's very exhausting.

Talking to the school psychologist can help

I didn't like the fact that Mom called one of the mothers. Somehow it got even worse. That's why at some point I stopped telling my mother everything. Otherwise she might have done it again. With the school psychologist I can talk about things differently. Talking to her is good. She is like a friend.

There was also an appointment with her, the principal and the girl who cut my hair. She denied everything, then got caught up in the lies, and finally cried - but I think it was to make people feel sorry for her. Eventually she apologized. I did not say anything. The school psychologist wanted me to bring my anger out on the table, but I couldn't.

Since then I have completely broken off contact with the three girls. It's okay if I see them at school, but I don't want anything to do with them anymore. I have no more hope that they will become my friends after all. It feels like a liberation. I have new girlfriends now and I don't think anything like this will happen to me again. Mom is more suspicious. It's frustrating. I think it would be better if she stayed out of it and let me do it.

"Every disappointment leaves traces"

When I tell others that my daughter is being bullied or excluded, the question always comes up: what did she do? As if it was her own fault. My sister commented on the hair cut with "And why didn't she say 'no'?" Even as an adult, you find yourself having a different opinion but only realizing afterwards when the right moment would have been to say something.

It is also often said that this "cat war" is quite normal during puberty. That's how Franzi's teacher reacted when I asked him about it. In fact, you almost get used to it. It was only a friend who shook us awake. "Why are you looking for the fault in yourself," she said to Franzi when she found out about the hair thing. "You didn't do anything wrong. The others are the problem and mean." Hearing that did Franzi so good – and got me thinking. Perhaps a line had really been crossed. My girlfriend's husband is a lawyer and advised filing charges for assault, but that's just not our style.

Seeing Franzi suffer breaks my heart. She is such a wonderful person, tender, sensitive, determined and with a big heart. I know that every new disappointment leaves a mark, and sometimes I'm afraid of losing them altogether. Before every school trip and every class trip I worry. Actually, those things are great things to look forward to, but even if everything's been fine for a few days and she's agreed with one of the girls to sit next to each other on the bus, she'll send me a photo of the empty seat next to her . That makes me so sad.

Parents want to protect their children

Of course I want to protect her. So it's not like I didn't do anything. I've already spoken to the other mothers. Without success. "I don't interfere, the children should clarify that among themselves," one said. That moment when Franzi got into the car after school and said, "I can't take it anymore. I'm going to the parallel class." Afterwards I was annoyed that I didn't take my anger out and finally spoke plainly with the others.

Instead, after the conversation with my girlfriend, I turned to the school psychologist, who, to be honest, I didn't even know existed until then. Franzi doesn't say much about the appointments with her. But it's good that she has someone to talk to. As a mother, you are certainly not always the right person.

The school psychologist said she would give Franzi a shell. She is an elf, anxious and hypersensitive. Of course she needs a kind of protection so that she doesn't let everything get to her, but she should be allowed to be who she is. Then she is just quiet and reserved, shy and weighing! I don't want her to understand: there's something wrong with you.

Togetherness gives strength

Encouraged by the school psychologist, Franzi has since broken off contact with the three girls who always teased her. The school closures during the Corona period helped her. She was lonely at first anyway. We suffered with her, but this time we persevered together. And very slowly new contacts developed; maybe Franzi was blocked before and wasn't open to letting new, honest people into her life. I'm so happy every time I hear her free, carefree laugh and see that she wants to go outside again. I am so thankful for that.

She has gotten stronger. And I have to learn to let them go. When face-to-face classes started, Franzi was cooler than me. "Don't worry mom," she said. I admire her courage.

"Interference can increase bullying"

I'm not a fan of analyzing victim bullying. Of course, this tends towards self-attribution: it must be me, after all they are not doing it with anyone else! It is all the more important to understand: "No, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time!" How the victim behaves is de facto almost irrelevant.

Bullying usually starts within the same gender. If no one then intervenes, there is a high probability that at some point everyone will join in. Standing by grinning or doing nothing also has an effect. On the victim, of course, but above all it is a confirmation for the perpetrators. That's what it's all about, after all: the demonstration of power. Not towards the victim – that is often the misunderstanding – but towards the group.

Even if others in the class think it's stupid what's happening, they're more likely to agree with the perpetrator than with the victim. This moral distancing happens very easily at the group level, and while there are no figures showing that bullying is increasing overall, this "disengagement" may actually be increasing. The phenomenon of conformity and the diffusion of responsibility - "Ah, the others won't intervene either, then I won't do anything either" - stabilize the situation. It may not be for everyone, but everyone gets used to it.

The best intervention comes from the class itself

Almost all children find bullying mean and unfair. You don't have to teach them any morals, but "just" shake them up, so to speak, by making visible what's happening without judgment and that it's actually completely at odds with your own attitude. Moderated by the class teacher. We know from meta-analyses that the best and most sustainable intervention comes from within the classroom itself and cannot be brought in from outside. Precisely because it is a structural problem, it must also be addressed structurally.

As well as I understand the impulse to call the perpetrator's parents, I think it was a mistake. The tendency to break the rules, this "I'm not a second row" child often has a counterpart in upbringing. So why should one find open ears from the perpetrator's parents? In fact, meddling can make bullying even worse. So: go to the teacher, and if she doesn't respond, to the headmaster and then to the supervisory authority.

Going to another school is a fatal solution - but it may be the right thing to do if the child's well-being is at risk. It signals: If you don't do anything wrong, you have to go; if you do something wrong, you can stay. This is administrative bullying. If you take the child out of school, you should - without revenge! – at least consider a supervisory complaint to make it clear: something is happening in the school that shouldn’t be, and it would be the school’s responsibility to take care of it.

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