What awaits children who have moved to a new school or class? How can we help them socialize faster and find friends? We talked about this with the director of the Center for Difficult Adolescents, psychotherapist Anna Khobotova.
How is a child’s self-esteem formed?
Anna Khobotova: Initially, in the family. If a child is praised for a drawing or a craft, attention is paid to his abilities and mistakes are gently pointed out, he gains self-confidence and finds a common language in society faster and easier, approaches making acquaintances on his own, and is easier to survive rejection from friendship. Parents should inform their child about the existence of their own opinions, personal boundaries and the ability to calmly but confidently defend them. In this case, he will not fall under bad influence and will avoid conflicts.
Explain that communication should be constructive, without aggression, without imposing oneself, but also without self-isolation. This will protect you from bullying and psychological harassment in the new society. Victims of bullying include both children with low self-esteem, who do not know how to respond and defend themselves, sometimes with external differences (overweight, physical illness, low social status of the family), and bright and beautiful children who stand out in class with a plus sign. Excellent students, champions and pride of the school arouse envy, anger and a desire to assert themselves at their expense in others, for which they are subjected to a shower of blows, ridicule and sometimes even physical violence.
How often do children experience bullying?
Anna Khobotova: Unfortunately, this affects almost all educational institutions today. The level of anxiety in society, families, children and adolescents is growing. Understanding that your child is a victim of bullying is not easy, but it is possible and the reaction must be immediate. Very often children hide this from their parents. Some are ashamed to tell the details, others are afraid of being punished for a broken backpack or a broken phone. And yet, in cases where the child has become withdrawn, taciturn, depressed, reacts very emotionally to some messages, comes home with damaged things, with cuts and bruises, lacks money and you cannot get a clear answer, with great probability he is bullied.
First of all, you should try to talk about it, gently but persistently. If he or she is closed, try to find out the details from people who have authority for the child, with whom trusting relationships have been established. Or consult a psychologist. It is often easier for a teenager to tell the most unpleasant and painful things to a stranger who feels at ease.
Next, of course, you need to protect your child and find out how the school reacts to bullying. If necessary, transfer to another school and, of course, sort out the psychological trauma with a specialist. Sometimes it seems that the consequences of bullying are not so terrible. But they can turn into a serious injury that will negatively, and perhaps even tragically, affect his future destiny. Bullying, rejection by a teenager, humiliation can become an insurmountable obstacle to the formation of a personality, to building friendships, love relationships, a career, and sometimes a trigger for the emergence of rigidity and the desire for revenge.
What other problems might a teenager face?
Anna Khobotova: Today, the Internet is an integral part of learning, development and searching for new information, but at the same time it represents a great danger. Over the past year, three alarming trends of deviation in children aged eight and older have emerged.
The first is gaming addiction, entering the virtual world as a way of coping with aggression, rejection at school, and grievances. In computer games, a child is as brave and cool as he would like in life. Passing levels one after another, he not only improves his mood, but also becomes addicted to the game. This has several consequences: disruption of the musculoskeletal system and the gastrointestinal tract, impaired vision, non-compliance with hygiene rules, and even complete sociopathy. Or future crimes such as spending large sums of money (very often from parents or other relatives) in online casinos and sports betting.
The second danger is the growing number of extremist groups on social media. Children and teenagers are promised small sums of money for making explosives or other extremist activities. Minors do not fully realise that they are being skilfully controlled and manipulated, posing as friends and ingratiating themselves in order to gain trust. However, teenagers who have reached the age of 14 bear full criminal responsibility for their acts and actions.
The third danger is dating sites and various chat rooms and social media groups where illegal sexual acts are committed against minors. Sometimes girls and boys are coerced and blackmailed, involved in sending intimate photos and videos, intimate correspondence, prostitution and participation in pornographic filming.
How to protect your child from these dangers?
Anna Khobotova: It is impossible to protect children from these phenomena 100 percent, but it is possible and necessary to limit access and control their time on the Internet. And here it is important to clearly explain to children that this desire is not to enter their personal space and life, but to protect it.
Give examples from your life, cases that allegedly involve the children of your colleagues, talk about certain terrible consequences of reckless and stupid actions. A teenager should understand that it is almost impossible to find a friend on the Internet, you cannot see or touch him, but it is very easy to find enemies and manipulators and become their victim.
If you notice that a child hides his gadgets, hastily leaves pages on social networks when you appear, reacts violently to your interest in this, looks at candid photos and videos, correspondence with strange content, negotiations with adults unknown to you, act immediately. Find out with whom he communicates, in which social networks, groups and chats he is, and with whom he talks on the phone.
If you suspect that your child is involved in extremism, the porn industry, or committing other illegal actions, contact the authorities. This way, you will protect both your child and other children from trouble.
Should parents be afraid of the Internet?
You need to learn to formulate the rules of augmented reality, and the student must have the feeling that he is protected. Nobody forbids a child to go outside just because there are cars driving there and the traffic lights are working. Adults teach him the rules and show him how to live safely in a modern environment. The same goes for the Internet. Although it is augmented reality, it is reality. And you also need to be able to navigate it. There are signs that may indicate that a teenager is being cyberbullied. Parents should be careful if his mood suddenly changes. If he often refuses to go to school, sleeps a lot. He tries to hide his phone and hides his page on social networks. Children, unaware of the danger, often post their phone numbers on the Internet. And for scammers this is bait. The phone number can end up on the dark web, among criminals who commit illegal acts against children. Of course, there is no point in demonizing the Internet, because it is our future. The main thing is that parents do not let everything take its course and take the formation of rules of behavior online as seriously as in real life.
