Eleni learned about the bullying of her son, whom she “ate” in the 1st grade, from her older brother. The child suffered for months at school. From him, Maria learned about the harassment that her son, a student of the 1st high school, perpetrated on a classmate. “Mom, I have something to tell you,” he told her one day. A year has passed and no one has done anything. “What should a 20-year-old psychologist do?” Huge schools, huge yards, weak supervision, anemic management, frightened teaching staff. The latest incident at Arsakio is just the tip of the iceberg. When violence breaks out in private schools, the main concern is that this information does not spread.

“My son has been systematically bullying a classmate for a year.” Maria never expected to say such a set of words, but here it is. Since then, she repeats this phrase to herself, then out loud. In the mirror, in the family, in friends. Since her child, who is only 12 years old, found the courage to speak up, she will not be the one to hide his act. “It started last year, we found out this year,” he tells K. Christ (names are fictitious, testimonies are true) systematically verbally and physically abused his classmate. Among other things, he took his lunch box and played football with it. She isolated him at recess, intimidated him. “Yes, the usual mockery, judging by what you say, this cannot be, and no one can smell it.” Yet the school either didn’t notice or didn’t want to interfere.

The revelation was once made by Christ himself. During a break, he asked a classmate who he was going to play, and he replied, “No, because I hate you for what you did to me.” The words seemed to awaken him from his sleep, as if they had broken a spell. “Christ suddenly realized what he was doing. He was in shock,” says his mother. “He asked for the phone number of the parents of another child, took them, told about what had happened and apologized. When he came home, he told us everything.”

His parents immediately went to a child psychologist to find out how to deal with the situation. “On the first two dates, we understood everything. If you are a little honest with yourself, you immediately understand your share of responsibility. We were responsible for what happened to our child and to the other child. Christos has left us. He found himself alone, without our guidance, due to time, daily life, and perhaps beliefs. We felt that we should not interfere in his relationship, that we should trust him.” As it turned out in the classes with a child psychologist, this behavior was the result of a dramatic change in the child’s life. His best friend dropped out of school and the group he found “initiated” him through violence. “He had no one to share what was happening to him. Not with the school, not with us. Our message to him was “you’re old enough.” He felt helpless,” Maria says. “Fortunately, since our family has structure and relationships, when the case came up, neither the child nor we denied responsibility.”

Of course, they immediately contacted the other child’s parents, who he said showed great maturity in dealing with the matter. “I apologized. They knew it, but they decided not to say anything because the child told them not to. “They will punish Christ, and then it will be worse for me.” Terrible. The two children are now friends. “They have a lot in common. They are both the only children from good, secure families. As the expert told us, perpetrator and victim are often two sides of the same coin. In a sense, Christ was mocking himself.”

“If you are even a little honest with yourself, you immediately realize your share of responsibility. We were responsible for what happened to our child and the other child.”

Both families considered bringing the matter to the attention of the school administration so that they could be involved in solving the problem and healing the trauma. However, they changed their mind. “We remembered what happened last year in another case of bullying and how they handled it, and we thought they would do worse.” This time, the victim was a girl who found herself extremely isolated from her classmates due to a leaked video exposing her. After persuading the girl’s parents – “finally do something”, the director gathered all the children in the yard and asked them: “Why don’t you talk to the girl?” The result, as one might imagine, was that the student was subjected to further persecution and was reduced to total isolation. “There are no specialized personnel. An inexperienced psychologist cannot deal with such incidents,” comments Maria.

Around the same time this was happening, at another large private school in Athens, Marios, a 2nd grade student, was eating firewood from a classmate every day. “Beat, kicked, knocked down. He was not the only victim. Another child targeted a group of children and beat them at every opportunity,” his mother tells K. She herself learned about this from her eldest son, who watched what was happening during breaks. Although it was in plain sight, no one from the school intervened to separate the children.

“In huge schools like this one, there is also a huge surveillance problem,” she says. “However, no one took me to inform me that all this was happening. In my phone calls asking how they would respond to the incident, the answer was always “don’t tell you, then we’re looking into it.” Not only were they ‘out’ of me, they were also a bit aggressive.” In fact, they constantly subjected child abuse to punishments. “As parents, we were never taught how to talk to children who were victims of school violence.” Finally, a group of parents approached the main office of the school. One child victim also began to show aggression. The second child was taken to the hospital from the blows. The third child, with a milder disposition, was forced to strike back, which caused him remorse. “Intimidation affects the class in many ways. We all think about other parents, but no one about school. Still, the school is responsible. Even the abuser doesn’t want it to be like that. What happens inside the school is the responsibility of the school. I have a system in front of me. But we see that there is a hood in private schools.”

However, according to teachers, the change in the attitude of parents towards teachers is also the cause of the phenomenon of violence in schools. “If you do not appreciate your child’s teacher, if you do not support him in his decisions, even if they are wrong, if you talk down about him at home, if at every opportunity you complain to the principal because you do not agree with what is happening in the classroom, are you also responsible for what happens in the school?” says physicist Tina Natsu. “Why should a child respect the teacher and classmates? The child will do what he sees at home. A fearful teacher cannot be a good teacher. Personally, I believe that the more society is disarmed, and especially parents, teachers, the more extreme violence in schools will increase.”