Today we explored the psychology of why people put other people down and in its extreme form - bullying.
We discussed how put downs are moments when someone says or does something to you that makes you feel bad about yourself.
We began by reflecting on our own experiences when someone might have said or done something that made us feel bad of who we are. You're stupid etc.
Some of us took risks by sharing their personal experiences and we discussed theories we had about why those people might have done that.
Later, we did some role plays of situations where children might put others down and discussed reasons we thought they might do this. We also discussed who we should be more concerned about: the victim or the person attacking. We had mixed thoughts about this and discussed possibilities.
After our role play discussions, we then looked at bullying. We now understand that bullying is long-term. We often misuse the word bullying. We sometimes think bullying is a one off situation, when actually it isn't.
Some key understandings from our discussion included:
° Self-esteem: Some people have high and others low self-esteem for various reasons
° Sometimes people put others down or in an extreme form start a pattern of bullying others because they have low self-esteem. To make themselves feel better about who they are, they might put others down. We talked about the psychology of people gaining 'power' or 'energy' from others to feel more confident or powerful about themselves.
° Importance of believing in our values and acting upon them. We agreed it can be challenging to stand up to our friends if they are trying to persuade us to think or do something that we know goes against what we believe is right or wrong. But, even in those challenging moments, it is important that we try to stand by our values.
Afterwards, we wrote a reflection about the important things we felt we wanted to remember. There might be a few misconceptions being formulated. However, we will be taking these initial understandings further over the next few weeks and will also be exploring effective and ineffective strategies we can use if people put us down or we see this happening to others.
Discussing these reflections could be a great way for your child to deepen their understandings and help them with wonderings they might be harbouring:
Our Reflections:
Nadia:
I want to remember that when people bully other people it is when they have low self-esteem. When the bully bullies the other people, they feel better about themselves and get higher self esteem. Also, I would like to remember that when you stand up to a bully, you get higher self esteem and the bully gets lower self esteem.
There is also the bystander: The bystander is a hard position to be because you have many choices. You can choose to go tell a teacher, do nothing, help the bully with the bullying, be kind to the bully, help the victim to stand up to the bully, and many other choices that would take too long to mention. The bystander has a lot of difficult decisions to make. Most of the time as a bystander you know what the right thing to do is but you are too scared to do it.
But most of all, I want to remember that bullying is contagious. When someone bullies someone else, the other person will have low self esteem and will bully someone else because of it and so the cycle goes on...
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Ayana:
If people are bullying, they most likely have low self esteem, and the reason they choose to bully someone is because they enjoy the feeling of power and confidence. When they bully someone, they choose someone that is weak and so they don’t even have to try and hurt that person. The bystanders have two options. I feel it is the hardest for them because they are torn between two difficult choices: Keep quiet and stay the bully’s friend, or help that one victim and loose the bully’s friendship. When the bully has low self esteem, and the victim has high self esteem, when the bully picks on the one with high self esteem, the bully sucks up some of that self esteem and the victim loses some.
The cycle continues until a bystander or the victim finally decides to stand up for themselves. Then, that bully will move on to another victim. You might stop there and think.. “Well, that bully is not my problem so…..” but you might want to put a stop to all bullying, and when you see that bully bullying someone, stand up for that victim. Or, when you see someone with low self esteem, help them so they won’t start bullying.
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Kayla:
Some key points I got from this discussion include,
All characters/people who have been in or have witnessed in an unfriendly situation count and will make a big difference to that situation.
One reason that people pick on each other is to gain more self esteem, for example if someone had really low self esteem and they weren't proud of who they were than a way of gain self esteem is to tell someone else that they aren’t good at something which, should make the victim have less self esteem and, the person picking on them gains that self esteem and that makes them proud and that, if why the would keep doing it.
A bullier bullies because they feel they need to feel that others think that they are strong, more powerful and more confidence.
A put down is something that is just a couple of seconds long that is telling them that they are bad at something for example you're terrible at art or something like that where, bullying is something that goes on for a long long time a couple of years normally because the bullier gets used to doing that and that becomes the only way that they can express himself.
Psychology helps with these kind of situation because psychology is the study of the mind and what people think.
Put downs and bullying happens a lot in our world and it might be impossible to live without at least one put down
I think that it is good to have these kind of talks because when we grow older it will happen more often and we need to know how and what is the right way to deal with these kind of situations all though, not everyone always has something to say about because they think that they are fine but still it is great
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Adam:
I think that the most important thing to remember is that bullies almost always bully you because they have low self-esteem and have probably been bullied before. I also think that it is important to remember that if you are nice to somebody who bullies you, it will give them self-esteem without taking away from others but you have to be careful because they might think that you are telling them that you really don’t care. It is also important that you should try and stand between the bully and the victim so that you can try and be nice to the bully, making them probably stop bullying for that day, if you ever see someone being bullied. An example of being nice to a bully if they are jealous about something that both of you did but they think theirs is bad and your’s is better would be to say something you like about what they made. I wonder how to break up a gang of children that think they are superior to the rest and follow each other out of fear. I am also curious about if you stood up for with what, in your opinion, is correct, then would other people do the same?
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Maxi:
I feel that putting down is just part of some people's lives they do it once they keep on doing it until bullying is evolved and expanded like a web or dominos that take up more and more people. It is my feelings that think the same people do it over and over again. And at one point they have so many victims there power gets taken by who is now the bully. Just this sort of sequence does not happen in big scene it's just in small groups or even just two people. But if people would start standing up or doing the right thing the stand up person might be the bully and the next victim could sooner or later as well be the bully. I have been put down today at afternoon recess as someone said I was a cheater and a liar and that person said i would not be his friend anymore but this just makes me feel i'm a useless person and i have no power at all so I think I should wait a while and see how sorry the person must be feeling now He probably had low or too high self esteem so he felt that maybe he would gain power over me but slowly i'm beginning to think i'm playing with the wrong people because this sort of thing happens every single playtime. For me as long as my feeling are not offended and none of my friends ( real friends ) I am sure nothing will happen but if you know you did something wrong by putting someone down I feel you should alway apologize to that person. I hope the future does not bring such bad memories with it but everybody has to learn to realize early enough that they have done something wrong it's just better to leave people alone so that they can play and live in peace and not having to deal with such issues.
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Salim:
That they do it for more mental reasons than physical reasons.That is because they want more mental strength but by taking the mental strength from someone that might make them become a bully too.
When you bully someone you give a disease.That is because by taking the mental strength from someone that might make them become a bully too.
The bystander can change everything.Because they can choose with whom they can be and how they could react.
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Andrea:
After doing this activity on psychology I want to remember a few things. I would like to remember that most of the time the reason people bully is because of low self-esteem. Also that if i'm a bystander then I should do something about it. Also that sometimes the reason why bullies might attack someone is because of jealousy. I think I should also remember to look at both perspectives. If I see someone with low self-esteem I think people should try and help them gain self-esteem so they don’t steal self-esteem. I want to also remember that bullying is like an addiction because people feel powerful. I learned a lot from this activity and I think it was a good idea.
There are also strategies for bullying that are good. When they put you down try and give them a compliment. Or when someone puts you down continuously just walk away and ignore them.
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Julia:
The reason why people bully is because they have low self esteem because they have somehow been let down before.Low self esteem comes by others getting them to have low self esteem.A lot of the time put downs are saying things or doing things. When you feel guilty is usually when you know you should have not done that. A way to stop bullies if you are the victim is to say something nice to them then they will feel different then stop bullying you.
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Lewis:
I want to remember that there is always a reason for a bully to bully someone else. It’s not like a bully does it for no reason . I also want to remember that the friends of bullies most of the time stay their friends because they are too scared that if they stop being the bullies friend they will get bullied . And sometimes the friends of bullies decide to become bullies so he can feel a bit better and so he can stay friends with the bully without getting unwell treated . I lastly want to remember that a bully's victim will get bullied until the bully doesn’t see him anymore .
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Carl:
I want to remember that it's always people with low self esteem that are the people that start bullying others. I also want to remember that the bullies only pick on people that they think are not a part of a group or the people that look like they are the weakest. And that people feel more powerful and more confident after they have bullied somebody. Next I want to remember that to not be bullied you have to like yourself act upon your values. Also you should always stand up to a bully so that they might leave you alone.
On the other hand the bystander can change the whole scene by choosing who they will support if they chose to help on side. Like if the bystander joined the bully the victim would lose his energy even faster.
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Neha:
If people are bullying you, they most likely have self low-esteem because they choose to bully someone, so they can enjoy the feeling of self-confidence and power. Also, when they choose to bully someone they always choose the weak people so they don’t even need to try hard to hurt that person. The bullies always want to choose someone who has high self-esteem so that the bullies would suck more power from those people. There is also another person in the
whole thing, the bystander. From my opinion, I think it is the hardest for the bystander/s because they need to choose between two choices. Keep quiet and stay as the bully’s friend, or support the victim to not lose his self-esteem.
This cycle continues until the victim or the bystander/s decide to stand up and stop this bullying cycle. It would be hard but it would be possible to stop the long- term problem.
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Chiara:
Some bullies act that way because they have really low self-esteem or also because they have been treated really badly and they decide to do that to other people too. Bullies also bully because since they have low self-esteem they bully people to get more self-esteem how ? because, by bullying someone you take away self-esteem from that person and put it onto you so that way you feel more powerful.Sometimes in arguments there are three people the bully the victim and the bystander and sometimes since the bystander sees a person getting bullied even though, they know it's the right thing to do is help them they sometimes decide not to help and join up with the bully so they don't get bullied they usually join up because they’re scared. Low self-esteem can also come from parents, friends or even people you don't know making you feel like you were never supposed to be born. Being a bully also comes from a lot of jealousy the bully thinks that the person is better then them so to not feel that way they just bully that person so they feel powerful and good about it ( When I do something like that I always feel guilty about it )
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Pavi:
I think it is important to know what the other person is feeling as well as yourself because something might have happened to them which you don’t know about. Bullies usually have a low self-esteem because they don’t realise their importance. In order to regain their self-esteem, they take on another person. The bully becomes a bully by making it an addiction to bully someone and creates a cycle. They can feel guilty sometimes.
Meanwhile, the victim has a high self-esteem, which is why the bully decides to pick on that person. If the victim stands up to the bully or stops it, the bully decides to move away to another person. But, the ex-victim develops an addiction for bullying because he had a low self-esteem and wants someone else’s.
The third person involved in this, is the bystander who witnesses the scene. The bystander probably has the most decisive part because, they can stand up for the bully/victim or just be out of the situation. If the bystander joins the bully, it is because of the fear that the bully might come to him next.
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Ryu:
I want to remember when people bully other people, bullier have their reason , before I did this unit I thought bullier don’t have any reason , and I thought they choose landam person and bully them.
Example, when my sister said bad word to me ( like you have no friends , you are stupid)
Her test was so bad and my mom got mad at her so my sister said bad word to me to make her feelings better. But that time I didn’t know about that so I return bad word to her and we fighted. So if like that happen again, I will not gonna return bad word to my sister and I gonna ask her like what happen or are you ok?( If I can)
Also I want to remember if bystander will defence victim bullier will stop bulling that person so if that happened to me I will defence victim even if that victim is not friend of me .
I also want to remember when my sister said bad word to me and if I say good word to my sister ( like I like your hair I like your mole it’s beautiful Etc) my sister will not get mad to me .( sometimes ).
So If i have a chance to do that I will try and see if that work and if it's didn’t work then my my sister will mad me to.
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Jules:
What important things do you want to remember about the psychology (study of the mind and behaviour) of people putting other people down?
I want to remember that a part of your energy gets taken away when you get bullied so i think you should be strong and not to be scared if you do they will target you as their enemy i also want to remember that the bullying can go on for a very long time like 10 years or longer i think if you come close to a bully you should stay away from the bully.
The bystander i think i a very good thing to remember because i think if you know what they do like help,help bullying,tell someone and even help fight the bully i also think that you have to stand up to the bully because then they maybe will stop
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Layane:
People bully others because they have low self-esteem. The psychology says that if a bully attacks a high self-esteemed person, the bully steals the esteem from that person. Therefore, the person who now has low self-esteem will bully another high self-esteemed person so that he can feel better about himself.
A strategy that we could use is that when someone puts you down, say or do something nice to them. It will blow the anger away from him and he will (maybe) stop bullying you!
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Sophie-Marie:
I want to remember that people put other people down, because they have a very low self - esteem. If those people see other people with high self - esteem they think how can I get more energy? Oh, I know I go put you down to get more self - esteem. So then they feel better and they will keep on doing it. We should help people like that so they stop getting other people down.
The victim who has high self - esteem gets picked, teased on, has different choses. First, they could live it and just get put down for years. Second, they could say that it is enuf, but that won't help the bullier, it would find another victim to put down. Third, say it is enuf and help the bullier to find another way to get higher self - esteem.
