School violence among students: The Bullying phenomenon

Ioannis Tsiantis (interviewed by Leonidas Kalidonis)

Healthview

Greek

English

Interview, Bullying, Victim, Perpetrator, Program

Web Article

Parents, Teachers, Young People.

Not relevant

According to the associate professor of child psychiatry Mr. Ioannis Tsiantis, one out of seven pupils undergo systematic bullying, which can reach even to physical violence. As the president of the Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents, Mr. Tsiantis reports that the aggressive behavior in schools among students is manifested more often and in a more violent way the last years.
The forms of this phenomenon can be: Verbal bullying, Physical bullying, Social bullying, Cyber bullying. As it appears mainly from the national literature, the 15% of pupils has experienced bullying, mainly at the ages of 8-15. The boys resort mostly to physical violence, while the girls are being mainly involved in incidents of verbal bullying.
The children who undergo violence in school fell more anxious and insecure, while they have lower self-esteem, cry easily and they can not defend themselves. They can also suffer from depression, psychosomatic problems, denial of going to school, learning disabilities and adaptation problems.
On the contrary, the children – perpetrators want to dominate and control the others. They are children who have low academic performance, they try to control the other using violence and they can also have deviant behavior.
Relatively to the tackling of the phenomenon, the Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents adopt from 2006 a European transnational research program to primary and secondary schools of Athens and Thessaloniki. The goal of the current program is the awareness of the teachers, the parents and the pupils and to propose good practices for the prevention of bullying. The results showed that the program provided the principles for better communication among pupils, teachers and parents and for respect to the human rights and the needs of the pupils, the parents and the teachers, so as to contribute all of them for a school without violence.

The current article describes the bullying phenomenon on a simple and a systematic way as well. The associate professor of child psychiatry (Medical School – University of Athens) Mr. Ioannis Tsiantis responses to 6 well-aimed questions on a compendious way. This makes the article legible and conceivable to anyone.
Having been given the definition of bullying, then are being reported the various forms of bullying. Furthermore the professor presents the extend of the phenomenon in Greece. According to that, one out of ten children faces this problem and the proportion of children who suffer from bullying increases rapidly.
In addition, the professor suggests good practices of how we can identify a victim or a perpetrator. On the first case, the child seems to feel repulsion to violence, it has low self esteem and it is very sensible, while on the second case the child tends to dominate the others and to commit violence.
Finally, it is represented the European transnational research program that adopts the Association for the Psychosocial Health of Children and Adolescents from 2006 to primary and secondary schools of Athens and Thessaloniki. The goal is the the awareness of the teachers, the parents and the pupils and the results of this adoption were rather positive.

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