Dialogue is the only way to stop the most stubborn silence. And bullying is always a silent threat.
How to stop bullying through dialogue?
When it comes to bullying, it’s crucial for parents and teachers to know what to ask their children, how to talk with them, which words to use.
As for what to ask, teachers must gather all the elements needed to get the big picture and immediately make an overall evaluation of the situation at a glance.
In order to do that, they have to listen carefully to their children’s stories without showing anger or anxiety. They have to suggest, whisper, not impose in order to restore the relationship.
They must be coaches, not masters nor judges. They must rather be like strategists.
Indeed they have to look after their children and, at the same time, envision consequences of any action. They have to set up a real and accurate strategy in order to put in place the needed actions to block or remove their children’s accounts from a blog or a social network, to cancel their photo taken online, to stop provocative messages or cyberattacks.
On the other side, parents and teachers must contact or go on involving other parents in order to engage the entire community so that the problem gets shared and all the possible solutions are openly discussed and translated in actionable tips.
Every viable option must be assessed in order to stop the violence and any attempt to make disclosure about it must be encouraged.
Thus silence strengthens the abuse and those who stay silent collude with the abusers.
So, before denouncing the bullying cases to the police, bullying events would rather be shared across the communities in order to raise awareness among people and also point out the correct behaviours.
It’s also important not to blame anyone for being victim or doing nothing to defend himself or herself and stop the violence.
As for how to talk, in every situation it’s always necessary to create an atmosphere of security, calm, understanding, comprehension and fear restraint.
Then, words follow.
Dialogue cannot be one way. It’d rather be a continuous process that should be promoted early from within the family and never interrupted.
Parents must listen to their children more than once and must know perfectly when it’s time to ask for someone else’s help because of the seriousness of the events.
Expecially in cyberbullying, the risk is the loss of control due to the exasperation of violence through repeated online attacks which make the evil chain have an exponential virality and ferocity.
Cyberbullying is always an out of control phenomenon whose boundaries are difficult to define and circumscribe. So it’s extremely crucial to intervene immediately. Indeed, its perverse cycle is much heavier than bullying.
Anonymity, pervasivity and difficulty of traceability make cyberbullying more threatful than traditional bullying.
as explained in our latest post. The main characteristic is the climax of violence that becomes progressively but rapidly persecution by means of intentional and systematic online attacks once the victim is connected.
The persecution is also strengthened by a supposed online anonymity, by the absence of every physical contact and by the larger visibility and resonance towards an enormous number of potential visitors, viewers and bystanders.
So, what happens online finds less obstacles, smaller resistances and hesitations and fewer brakes than in the offline.
The violence runs through the digital devices and rises up until no perception and no awareness of the consequences of such bad behaviours remain.
The loss of the awareness of evil is the worst side of violence. As persecutors gain momentum in violence, they progressively loose control until they loose every sense of guilt.
Thus the more the physical distance between persecutor and victim, the weaker the perception of the relationship between action and consequences, the less the perceived responsibility for causing suffering to the victims.
And that is always the tragic epilogue of the violence.
