"Let's suppose I have a very sexy girlfriend who wants to break up with me. If I tell her "If you break up with me, I'll kill myself", is this bullying? Taking a picture with my cell phone of a very pretty cross-legged lady and putting it on the internet, is this also bullying?"
More than to certainties, the child psychiatrist Mário Jorge Loureiro gave rise to worries during the seminar "Bullying: From Mediatisation to Discussion", organised by final year students of the Nursing School of Coimbra (ESEnfC) within the scope of a research project.
«Bullying is not just what happens in schools», stressed Dr. Mário Jorge Loureiro, supporting that «at work, among colleagues» bullying is also a common phenomenon. Loureiro relates it to what he says to be «disruptive behaviours in social terms».
Sceptical in relation to the several studies on the phenomenon, he advised to look at them with critical thinking, namely in terms of the source of the information (it is different to approach a 5 year-old child or 15 year-old teenagers).
Professor Doctor Sónia Seixas, from the (Higher Education) School of Education of Santarém, who spoke during the second round table, seems so have less doubts: all the aggression, harassing or verbal insult phenomena (aiming at to humiliate, molest or ridicule) that can occur in a relation of equality are not "bullying".
Bullying, the professor with a PhD in Pedagogical Psychology said, involves a relation of unequal power: a stronger aggressor, or better seen socially, and a more fragile victim.
To the child psychiatrist of the Paediatric Hospital of Coimbra, the «parents' lack of time» to be with their children and «the chronic parental disagreement and conflict» are the factors which influence the deviant behaviours of the youngsters.
«Society forces us, today, to have criminal children», said Dr. Mário Jorge questioning the level of emotional comfort given to a child by a father who Works 12 a day and that is not with him.
The seminar, coordinated by teachers of the ESEnfC, António Couto and Luís Oliveira, was organized in two round tables. The first one on "School Violence: Family's Role", which had the participation of Dr. Mário Jorge Loureiro, Nurse Maria de Lurdes Patrício (Child Psychiatry Department of the Hospital Centre of Coimbra) and psychologist Ana Azeiteiro (Family Violence Service of the Sobral Cid Hospital).
Of the second round table - "Bullying: Prevention, Detection and Intervention in School Context" - took part Nurse Pedro Sousa (masters degree in Pedagogical Psychology), Professor Ana Paula Santos (coordinator of the Project Education for Health at the Secondary School D. Duarte) and teacher Emília Bigotte (president of the Regional Federation of Parents' Association of the Central Region).
Carlos Elias, Hilário Soares, Marco Fernandes, Óscar Lopes, Pedro Martins, Ricardo Dinis and Silvério Alvelos organized the seminar.
