7 Steps to Bully-Proofing Kids

According to White House estimates, over 13 million kids are bullied across the U.S. each year, so it’s important to take pro-active steps. For parents, teachers, counselors, grandparents, group leaders, and anyone else with a child in your life, here seven steps to help you “bully-proof” the kids you love and care about:

1. Teach them to value their self-worth. Every child needs to know they don't have to look, act, dress, learn, or be like everyone else to be worthy of respect. Affirm their talents, strengths, and competencies so they can always remember who they are at the core, regardless of what anyone else says or does.

2. Teach them that they never have to tolerate cruel behavior. Sadly, kids who are bullied often believe they deserve it. They wonder if there’s something inherently wrong with them that causes the bullying. Teach them that bullying is more about the person who bullies than the recipient of it. And let them know that under no circumstances should they ever allow someone to purposely humiliate, threaten, shun, or harm them. If that happens, it’s critical that they seek the well-deserved support of someone who cares about them.

3. Teach them that asking for help isn’t tattling. Too often kids avoid telling adults they’ve been bullied because they believe that would be “snitching.” For whatever reason, there’s an unspoken taboo against “telling” among too many kids. Let them know they have the right to be emotionally and physically safe under all circumstances, and if someone violates that right, they have the right to ask for help.

They also need to know that if the bullying continues they need to keep asking support until it stops.

4. Teach them to avoid kids who are “trouble.” Sometimes our kids put themselves at risk by seeking the approval or friendship of kids who mistreat them. Tell them, "If someone doesn't like you, there's someone else who does.” As long as they have one person they consider a friend, that may be enough.

5. Teach them how to stand tall, look someone in the eyes, and say, "Stop," without whining, crying, or looking scared. Rehearse this with them so they can develop the ability to assertively stand up to someone who tries to bully them -- even if they’re shaking inside. Then, go on to Step 6.

6. Teach them how to walk away with pride. They don't have to stand there and take it if someone's directing mean words or actions at them. Role play with them how to stand tall with head held high, and walk away from someone who's trying to put them down. Walking away in this manner is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it takes the wind out of the person who's trying to gain power over you.

7. Keep the doors of communication open at all times, and take time to talk with them every day. That way, they'll be more likely to come to you if someone's bullying them, rather than withdrawing in shame and silence.

By the way, for the latest on what you need to know about cyberbullying, click here. 

Every child deserves to be respected.

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7 Ways to Prevent Bullying and Mean Behavior

Even "nice" kids can resort to meanness in today's contentious culture. Here are seven steps to take if you're a teacher or parent. They'll help cut back on mean behavior and bring about more kindness.

1. Make kindness the expected norm in your class or home.
2. Model, teach, reinforce and expect kindness, compassion, respectful behavior. If you’re a teacher, weave in a lesson a week and follow up. If you’re a parent, have family meetings to reinforce and problem-solve.
3. Never look the other way when bullying or cruelty occur. Confront them immediately.
4. Hold offenders accountable: have them make amends; give a consequence; follow up.
5. Teach kids to be upstanders for peers who are picked on.*
6. Teach your kids how to resolve conflicts and manage anger. **
7. Give lots of positive recognition for kind behaviors: acknowledge, describe, reward, expect.

*   For a free downloadable lesson on teaching kids to be upstanders, click here.

** For steps to resolving conflicts, click here.

You can stop mean behaviors before they get out of hand.

What Do You Think? To comment, e-mail Naomi@LearningPeace.com or click on the word “comments” below. Write your comment in the box, then click on “Select profile . . .” If the top group of options doesn’t apply to you, select “Name/URL” to comment with your name (you can leave the URL part blank), or select “Anonymous.”

No Kidding About Bullying Nominated for Major Award

Okay, please indulge me while I brag just a little because I'm too excited to keep this too myself: my publisher just informed me that No Kidding About Bullying has been nominated for the Association of Educational Publishers' Distinguished Achievement Award!

This is such a wonderful honor, and so I'm happy just to have my book nominated. (If I sound like I'm at the Oscars, remember, you're indulging me here.) Anyway, the winner will not be announced till June. I can't believe I'll have to wait nine months to find out, but I've given birth to two kids, and they took nine months to get here, so I guess I can wait nine months for this too.

By the way, if you're using No Kidding About Bullying, please let me know how it's going. How are your kids responding to the sessions? Is there a particular part of your day where you fit the sessions in -- morning meeting, health, social studies? Do you have a favorite session? I'd love to hear from you and your kids.

By the way, New Jersey (my state) just came up with the most amazing anti-bullying legislation. See my article in the Examiner for details.  Yay, New Jersey!! We really do lots of things right!


What Do You Think? To leave a comment, click on the word “comments” (ignore the number that precedes it). Write your comment in the box, then click on “Select profile . . .” If the top group of options doesn’t apply to you, select “Name/URL” to comment with your name (you can leave the URL part blank), or select “Anonymous.”

National Bullying Prevention Month Is Here

Were you ever bullied as a child or teen? I was, and just about every adult I've talked to admits that they were too somewhere along the way. Did you ever bully anyone else? I did. I was mean to my younger brother and still feel guilty about it to this day. Bullying someone else is a harder thing for people to admit, but doing so can be the beginning of helping a child who bullies stop.

Bullying can be an ever-repeating cycle: the person who's bullied bullies the next person, and so on, and so on. And each person in the bullying cycle is adversely affected by it, including those who simply watch. Bullying can have a devastating affect all the way around, and as we've seen in the heart-breaking events of the past month, it's affects can be lethal.

So, what can we do? Starting now, starting today, we can bring the issue of bullying out of the shadows. Talk about it with your friends and family. If you're a parent, and you were bullied at some point, let your kids know how it affected you personally. Or if you bullied someone else, talk about that too. Or, perhaps you were affected by seeing someone else being bullied -- this is another important discussion to have. Whatever your experience with bullying, talk about it, and encourage your kids to talk about their own. Conversations like these can open many doors. They can provide you with knowledge about your child you previously didn't know. They can also open the channels of communication about a topic that remains hidden in so many kids' lives. And more importantly, conversations like these can enable you give your kids critical information about bullying.

Let's all take part in National Bullying Prevention Month by not only having these critical conversations, but by also speaking up on behalf of anyone who is bullied, discriminated against, or treated in a cruel manner. If more people had spoken out on behalf of Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, Justin Aaberg, and Tyler Clementi, the five teens who died this month in bullying-related suicides, they might still be alive today.

If your child is being bullied, take a look at this excellent information from Stop Bullying Now, a project of the United States Health Resources and Services Administration.


If Your Child Is Being Bullied
from Stop Bullying Now

1. First, focus on your child. Be supportive and gather information about the bullying.

                  Never tell your child to ignore the bullying. What the child may “hear” is that you are going to ignore it. If the child were able to simply ignore it, he or she likely would not have told you about it. Often, trying to ignore bullying allows it to become more serious.

                  Don't blame the child who is being bullied. Don't assume that your child did something to provoke the bullying. Don't say, “What did you do to aggravate the other child?”

                  Listen carefully to what your child tells you about the bullying. Ask him or her to describe who was involved and how and where each bullying episode happened.

                  Learn as much as you can about the bullying tactics used, and when and where the bullying happened. Can your child name other children or adults who may have witnessed the bullying?

                  Empathize with your child. Tell him/her that bullying is wrong, not their fault, and that you are glad he or she had the courage to tell you about it. Ask your child what he or she thinks can be done to help. Assure him or her that you will think about what needs to be done and you will let him or her know what you are going to do.

                  If you disagree with how your child handled the bullying situation, don't criticize him or her.

                  Do not encourage physical retaliation (“Just hit them back”) as a solution. Hitting another student is not likely to end the problem, and it could get your child suspended or expelled or escalate the situation.

                  Check your emotions. A parent's protective instincts stir strong emotions. Although it is difficult, a parent is wise to step back and consider the next steps carefully.

2. Contact your child's teacher or principal.

                  Parents are often reluctant to report bullying to school officials, but bullying may not stop without the help of adults.

                  Keep your emotions in check. Give factual information about your child's experience of being bullied including who, what, when, where, and how.

                  Emphasize that you want to work with the staff t school to find a solution to stop the bullying, for the sake of your child as well as other students.

                  Do not contact the parents of the student(s) who bullied your child. This is usually a parent's first response, but sometimes it makes matters worse. School officials should contact the parents of the child or children who did the bullying.

                  Expect the bullying to stop. Talk regularly with your child and with school staff to see whether the bullying has stopped. If the bullying persists, contact school authorities again.

3. Help your child become more resilient to bullying.

                  Help to develop talents or positive attributes of your child. Suggest and facilitate music, athletics, and art activities. Doing so may help your child be more confident among his or her peers.

                  Encourage your child to make contact with friendly students in his or her class. Your child's teacher may be able to suggest students with whom your child can make friends, spend time, or collaborate on work.

                  Help your child meet new friends outside of the school environment. A new environment can provide a “fresh start” for a child who has been bullied repeatedly.

                  Teach your child safety strategies. Teach him or her how to seek help from an adult when feeling threatened by a bully. Talk about whom he or she should go to for help and role-play what he or she should say. Assure your child that reporting bullying is not the same as tattling.

                  Ask yourself if your child is being bullied because of a learning difficulty or a lack of social skills? If your child is hyperactive, impulsive, or overly talkative, the child who bullies may be reacting out of annoyance. This doesn't make the bullying right, but it may help to explain why your child is being bullied. If your child easily irritates people, seek help from a counselor so that your child can better learn the informal social rules of his or her peer group.

                  Home is where the heart is. Make sure your child has a safe and loving home environment where he or she can take shelter, physically and emotionally. Always maintain open lines of communication with your child.

By the way, if it comes to light that your child is bullying, click here for some very helpful information. 

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Time To Build More Empathy in Kids

How's this for shocking -- According to a new study of 14,000 students by the Association for Psychological Science, kids who started college after 2000 have 40% lower levels of empathy than kids who preceded them. This was the largest study of its kind to quantify the decline in empathy, and it's pretty scary. No wonder we have this epidemic of youth cruelty and bullying!

Why is this happening? One of the causes, according to Psychology Today bloggers, Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz, authors of Born for Love: Empathy, the Brain, and Human Connections, is the fact that kids hardly ever play with each other anymore. "Without unstructured free time with playmates, children simply don't get to know each other very well. And you can't learn to connect and care if you don't practice these things. Free play declined by at least a third between 1981 and 2003 --right when the kids who hit college in 2000 and later were growing up."

Too much time in front of video games, TV's, and other electronic devises is another culprit, according to Perry and Szalavitz. "Even nonviolent kids' TV, research finds, is filled with indirect aggression and linked to increased real-world bullying."

Co-author of the empathy study, Sara Konrath, concurs. Conrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, said, "The increase in exposure to media during this time period could be one factor. In terms of media content, this generation of college students grew up with video games. And a growing body of research, including work done by my colleagues at Michigan, is establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of others."

So what can we do? Modeling and teaching empathy at home and cutting down on time with electronic media would be a good first step. Equally important is getting kids to play and talk with each other more. But beyond that, schools need to do whatever they can to foster empathy, respect, and kindness.

Click here download a free lesson that will help build empathy and conscience. If you're a parent, pass this on to your child's teacher. If you're a teacher, this lesson will help you start your students off with a dose of compassion, and the message that mean words hurt. What else do you think can be done to foster a more compassionate generation of kids? Let us know.


What Do You Think? To leave a comment, click on the word “comments” (ignore the number that precedes it). Write your comment in the box, then click on “Select profile . . .” If the top group of options doesn’t apply to you, select “Name/URL” to comment with your name (you can leave the URL part blank), or select “Anonymous.”