Aggressive Victims

 

Sze's case

When Sze was eating with her classmates in the dining hall, two students approached and verbally taunted her. Although Sze felt annoyed, she managed to control her temper as she was afraid of being punished by the teacher. However, her classmates continued provoking Sze, and finally, she retaliated and started shouting and throwing things at them.

 

Negative sample (Suggest contradictory handling methods to solve social conflicts)

• Failure to analyse the incident from an objective perspective.
• Suggest vague methods for solving social conflicts.

The parents of aggressive victims may themselves lack the ability to solve problems. When faced with their children’s problems, they do not know how to solve them satisfactorily and give unsatisfactory problem-solving guidance to their children. The statement of Sze’s father in this video exemplifies this: it annoys Sze, and undermines her trust in her father. This results in Sze relying on her own thoughts and action, and "solving" problems alone.

 

Instant intervention (Understand their struggles and contradiction)

• Accept the emotionality of children.
• Parents should set a good example for their children, and teach them to observe the surrounding environment thoroughly before taking action.
• Solve problems together with children.

Parents can take up the role of providing emotional support to children. Compared with teachers, parents have the opportunity to understand more about their children’s values and emotions. Children will feel supported and understood if parents can interpret and accept their inner feelings.

Afterwards, parents should assist their children to find resources for dealing with problems. During this process, and regardless of the outcome, children can observe and learn that their parents are not afraid of difficulties and do not evade responsibilities. At the same time, children will feel that they are highly regarded by their parents, which will enhance their self-worth and thus assist them to counter the negative effects of bullying.

 

Long-term intervention (Use personal experience to prove that they can treat the individuals in different relationships with different attitudes.)

• Recognise, appreciate and praise the positive changes made by children.
• Let children know that parents can adopt various attitudes to deal with different kinds of people and avoid frustration, and that children can learn this skill, too.

One of the key things that aggressive victims need to learn is social skills. Sometimes, their paranoia will cause them a lot of trouble: in Sze’s case, if she maintains the irrational belief that it is normal and necessary to maintain an absolutely good relationship with every classmate, she will feel disappointed and lose self-confidence when she cannot achieve this goal. However, when her father shared his personal experience to broaden Sze’s level of acceptance and let her understand the differences in interpersonal relationships, Sze, the aggressive victim, finally relaxed and experienced far fewer interpersonal crises.