Often parents believe that the most effective way to help a child who is afraid of ridicule from peers is to ensure that the child no longer communicates with those children who bullied him. For example, you may think that if you transfer your son or daughter to another school, all problems will be magically resolved. Unfortunately, as experience shows, such a “magic remedy” is not always effective. Moreover, very often in a new class, the child’s relationships begin to unfold according to a scenario that is already too familiar to you. So what's next? Change schools again? But changing schools is, in any case, stressful for a child, especially an anxious one, who is usually highly sensitive and does not tolerate changes in life well. If you do not help the child in some way change his behavior and his attitude towards people around him, he will move to another team turns out to be, at the very least, useless. The fact is that the principle of the so-called “self-fulfilling prophecy” comes into play here. Let's figure out what it is. Imagine yourself in the place of a child (and an adult too), who is afraid that others will certainly treat him badly, tease him and make fun of him. It is clear that such a person will react extremely painfully to any absolutely harmless manifestations of others. The most innocent joke evokes the reaction “they wanted to offend me”, a random collision in the corridor - “they hit me on purpose”, interested questions about my previous school - “they probably know what I had there, and they are asking specifically to offend me.” As you might guess, such explanations (as psychologists say, interpretations) of the behavior of others provoke excessively harsh, emotional reactions, which, in the end, will really cause a negative attitude from others. Therefore, even if you think that transferring your child to another school is the only way out from the current situation (and sometimes this is actually advisable), it is still necessary to help him cope with his fears so that the child stops provoking other people to ridicule with his behavior. There is absolutely no need to try to “deal” with the offenders of your own child yourself (if, Of course, we are not talking about a serious threat of physical harm to your child). This will only lead to his position in the group getting worse: children really don’t like those who constantly hide behind “mother’s skirt” and lie to their parents or teachers. The child must learn to solve his own problems in interpersonal relationships; another thing is that he often needs the support of adults in this. Try to tell the child about your experience. Almost all of us have had periods in our lives when we, even if only for a short time, were in the gray skin of a kind of “scapegoat”. Share your memories with your child. Tell us that this tormented you too, that you were scared, offended and disgusted. Don’t forget to tell us how you managed to get out of this situation and overcome your fear. This kind of story can be very supportive for your child. “How, if my mother, so beautiful and smart, was also teased in class for being “bespectacled,” and then she became the captain of the school basketball team, then I, too, will somehow survive all this.” Very often this fear exists together with other feelings: anger, resentment, irritation, etc. Therefore, we, adults, need to try to help the child express these feelings in a safe form, to “let off steam.” This makes the situation much easier. And it is then that it becomes easier for the child to follow the advice that adults often give in such situations: “They tease you, but you don’t pay attention, then they will become uninterested and will leave you behind.” This is very good advice. Indeed, teasing is interesting only if the “victim” blushes, gets angry, cries, or otherwise reacts to the “harassment” of the offenders. The only problem here isone. Have you ever tried to “ignore” something that literally infuriates you, terribly hurts you or offends you? That's the point: emotions are very difficult to control under our conscious control; it is impossible to simply tell yourself not to be offended or angry. The same thing happens with our children: they are offended, and they are offended, even if they understand perfectly well that this only provokes the offenders. You can invite the child to draw portraits of the offenders, and then tear them into small pieces. It can also be useful to trample on pieces of the drawing, while also swearing at the offenders. You can do the “Eeyore” exercise with your child, which is associated with the traditions of martial arts, and not with the name of the famous hero of the fairy tale about Winnie the Pooh. Place more pillows on the table (preferably a strong one). Have the child stand in front of the table. On the syllable “and” you need to raise your hand and take a deep breath, and then exhale sharply and, shouting “a,” hit the pillows with your hand. It is very important that the child does not scream from the ligaments, the sound should be born lower, in the stomach, come from the depths of the body. There is another good game that helps to safely discharge aggression. It's called "Two Bears". Get on all fours with your child, facing each other. Press against each other where your neck meets your shoulder. Start pushing each other, accompanying these wonderful movements with a guttural growl. Naturally, the child must push and defeat the “big bear”, which, as a sign of defeat, turns on its back, with its “paws” up. Just make sure that victory does not come too easily to your “bear cub”, then the exercise will not be so useful. Very good results can be obtained if you help the child get out of the victim position. For example, you could tell him the following: “Imagine that you are conducting an experiment on the children in your class. Keep a special notebook and note who calls you names and how many times during the day, also write down your reaction to each ridicule. Then you can see what their name-calling depends on. Maybe it has something to do with the days of the week? Do they call you names more on Thursday than on Monday?” Our experience shows that this technique gives a very good effect. The child begins to feel not like a defenseless victim, but like an experimenter, with a pencil and notepad in his hands, bending over a jar of spiders. Naturally, such a change in the internal position will certainly lead to changes in the child’s behavior, and this will make pestering him not so interesting for others. You can also invite the child to come up with as many ways as possible to respond to the situation of name-calling. A child can name absolutely ways, even the most fantastic ones (for example, calling aliens for help). The main thing is that there are more ways. This will help your son or daughter cope with the feeling of helplessness that often comes with the fear of being ridiculed. It is very important for a child who is afraid of ridicule from peers to gain the experience of positive communication with other children. Most often, this experience already exists; the child may simply forget about it under the influence of strong emotional upheavals associated with ridicule directed at him. Remind your son or daughter about the boy Vasya, with whom he plays in the yard, or the girl Masha, with whom she goes to music school. Remind that Vasya and Masha are not laughing at your child at all, but on the contrary, they want to be friends and strive to communicate. If a child remembers existing friends (and these memories play the role of an internal resource, an untouchable supply of positive emotions), it is easier for him to endure unpleasant moments that occur in interactions with peers. Another way to help children who are afraid of being ridiculed by others is to teach them more effective communication skills. Sometimes a child's fear can be caused precisely by the fact that he simply does not have a good enough idea of ​​how to build relationships with other people. In this case, you can analyze various lifesituations and discuss what their characters did, why they did it, what it led to, and how they could have done it differently. The material for such discussions can be anything - real situations from the lives of friends, films, books, etc. Gradually, you can begin to discuss real situations from the life of a child. Here it is important to bring the child to the realization that the way his relationships with others develop is not only a matter of blind chance or the influence of the qualities of other people, but also the result of his own efforts. It is very important that your daughter or son learns to take responsibility for what happens in their interpersonal relationships. As research shows, high anxiety is very closely related to the feeling of being unable to control the situation, and when a child sees that the attitude of others depends on his actions, at least to some extent, this significantly reduces anxiety and fears. As we have already found out above, the fear of being ridiculed can also be associated with a child’s self-esteem. Therefore, helping to free yourself from this fear means increasing your self-confidence. Unfortunately, this is not as simple a matter as adults sometimes think. If we notice that our child is not confident in himself, the first urge that arises is to praise him or her more often. However, as observations by psychologists show, praise often has a paradoxical effect on an insecure child: it further strengthens this low self-esteem. Hearing praise, an insecure child thinks: “Apparently, I’m doing really bad if I’m praised like that all the time.” What to do? Still praise, but only for some specific achievements of the child. That is, the praise “You are my smartest” will have a less positive impact than “You solved this math problem very well. It only took you five minutes to find the answer. And I really liked how logically and consistently you reasoned.” To increase a child’s self-esteem, you can use a number of special exercises and techniques, which we have already discussed with you when discussing other fears. Another important question that is worth discussing with a child who suffers from the fear of being ridiculed is whether it is always worth acting in such a way as to NOT be ridiculed, whether it is always worth obeying the majority, doing like everyone else. This is a very serious question dealing with very serious issues. As the results of various studies and surveys show, many young teenagers start smoking or try alcohol (and sometimes more serious psychoactive substances) precisely because of this “herd” feeling, the fear that if you refuse you will be considered a “weakling,” “ “mama’s boy”, etc. To make it easier for the child to cope with similar situations in the future, you can conduct a special role-playing game with him. You will offer him different things, and he will say no. It is advisable to answer “no” cheerfully, in the so-called “light tone”. You can discuss and play out different ways to refuse. For example, like this: “A broken record.” You repeat “no” as many times as necessary (“Let’s go have a smoke” - “No, thank you” - “Yes, okay, go ahead” - “No” - “Are you afraid?” - “I already said that I won’t smoke”, etc.). Answer “no” and explain the reason for the refusal (“Let’s go have a beer” - “No, I don’t like the taste”). Answer “no” and offer some alternative (“ Let’s have a smoke” - “I have a new DVD with a cool movie at home. Let’s go watch it.” So, in order to help a child cope with the fear of being ridiculed, parents should not always: transfer the child to another class or school; try to “deal” with the child’s offenders themselves. To help your child overcome the fear of being ridiculed: tell your child about your experiences with negative relationships with peers and how you managed to cope with these situations; help your child find safe ways to express anger and anger at.