Ways to Foster Kids Who Don't Bully

Recent research tells us that kids who bully all share one thing in common: They lack empathy. If you're a teacher or parent who wants to help kids resist bulling, here are four things you can do right now:

1. Name your feelings and help kids name their own. Kids who lack empathy are often completely out of touch with how other people feel, and how they themselves feel too. They might be able to identify basic emotions like happy and angry, but, beyond that, they may be completely clueless. They need your help to tune in. Naming and identifying feelings is one of the first steps in developing empathy.

2. Model respect and compassion even when you're angry. Kids who bully tend to be hot-headed and easily frustrated. Help them learn to manage anger and frustration through your own example. One respectful, compassionate way to express angry feelings is to say something like this: "I know you're feeling frustrated right no, but what you said made me mad. I'm taking a few minutes to cool off. Then we can talk about it.

3. Call kids on mean words and actions of any kind.  Whether directed at a sibling or peer, don't ignore cruel behavior. Say something like, "That was really unkind," or "I felt so upset seeing you treat your brother in such a mean way." Then have them think of ways to make amends to the person they've hurt.

4. Seek out books, videos, and TV shows with characters who exhibit compassion and respect. Look for real life models too. Name the positive qualities you see and discuss them together. Kids need exposure to more and more examples of people who are decent, kind, compassionate, and respectful. Since they learn primarily through imitation, we need to help them have good examples to imitate and emulate.

What Do You Think? To leave a comment, e-mail me at 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.”

Is Your Child Bullying Someone?

So many of us are concerned about kids who are bullied -- and we should be. But what about the kid who's doing the bullying? There's cause for concern here too. Did you know that kids who bully are at greater risk for getting in trouble with the law later in life? They're also at risk for school failure, troubled relationships and substance abuse.

What can you do if you suspect your child might be bullying? According to StopBullyingNow, "Requests to aplogize, self-esteem building, asking why, pleading, and expressions of frustration are unlikely to help and may make things worse. Here's what they recommend you do instead . . .

Ask Useful Questions:

- What did you do"
- Why was that a bad thing to do?
- Who did you hurt?
- What were you trying to accomplish?
- Next time you have that goal, how can you meet it without hurting anybody?

(from StopBullyingNow)

Additionally, it's important to help kids who bully gain empathy, conscience, and a sense of responsibility for their actions. If your child is bullying someone, let him know how it makes you feel, and then talk together about how he can make amends. Ask, "What can you do to make up for the pain you've caused?" Then, hold your child accountable and make sure he follows through. By doing so you'll be helping him and the child he's been hurting.

What Do You Think? Since it's so hard to leave comments on this blog site, drop me a line at Naomi@LearningPeace.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

News You Can Use Right Now

If you're looking for hands-on strategies on preventing bullying and conflict in your classroom, you can sign up for a live webinar I'll be doing on March 24th. Here's the information. Hope you can join us!

 Bullying Prevention and Conflict Resolution: Tips and Strategies You Can Use Today


Here's what we'll cover:

- Ways to foster kindness and compassion

- How to help kids be “upstanders” for peers who are mistreated

- Six steps for working out conflicts 

Register at: www.freespirit.com/Webinars

Time: 4:00 Eastern time, 3:00 Central

Cost: $25.00 

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A Strategy for Fostering Compassion and Helping Kids Disavow Mean Words

Using a "Memory Bank" is one way to help kids grasp the impact of mean words. Here's a wonderful description of how to use this strategy from 4th grade teacher Melissa Shanahan of Cedar Bluffs Elementary School in Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska:

Our fourth graders have been doing activities from No Kidding About Bullying. These activities are designed to help students manage anger, resolve, conflicts, build empathy, and learn to get along. One of the activities is about creating memory banks. The lesson talks about how our actions today may affect how people remember us in the future. I talked about how when we treat someone poorly we create a bad memory for them. The students wrote down mean things that had been said to them. Next, I read the comments. Then the students put the mean comments into a box called a "Memory Bank." While the students answered questions I shook the box loud in front of them. They said it was too hard to concentrate with all the noise in their ears. I told them that people who are treated poorly may have that going on in their heads all the time. It's really hard to think when you have bad thoughts of things people have said to you floating around in your head. We then threw away the  bad thoughts and filled the box with positive ones. I explained that it would be nice if our brains could do that, but they can't, and what we say ad do today can affect the way feel about us and themselves in the future. As a class we are working hared to create a positive memory bank for the people in our lives. A parent recently told me that one of my students referenced creating  a positive memory bank for someone at basketball practice.


We've also made posters to hang around our school with the new definition of cool from No Kidding About Bullying, how to be an upstander, and using kind words. I've been sending home a letter a week so parents can know what we've been working on in class. I'm hoping they will reinforce this at home.


I've had several parents thank me for working on these skills with the class. It's really nice to have something to refer to when there are problems in the classroom and on the playground. Using the word "upstander" and reminding my students of the memory bank seems to help. I'm excited to try the rest of the lessons.

Thank you, Melissa, for sharing this. We look forward to hearing more from you!

One More Thing: 

If you're an educator in the state of New Jersey, here's another workshop I think you'll be interested in:

Hope to see you there!!!


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.”

"No Kidding About Bullying" Designated Essential Resource

The prestigious School Library Journal has just named No Kidding About Bullying an "essential resource on bullying for educators," citing it as a tool for prevention. The frequency and intensity of recent bullying incidences point to a pressing need for more proactive preventative measures. Schools, families, and society in general can't merely respond to bullying when it occurs. We absolutely have to put in place programs that stop bullying before it even begins.

Compassion, kindness, and acceptance need to be taught with the same depth of commitment traditionally reserved only for the basics. But think about it -- what's really more basic than the need for people to treat each other with compassion, decency and respect? We need look no further than recent headlines, including the shameful attack of 13 year-old Nadin Khoury in Philadelphia this week, to see that whatever we're doing about bullying simply isn't enough. My deepest hope is that this book will be one of many wonderful resources that will help turn the tide.


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.”

If a Peer's Being Picked On

In an anti-bullying workshop I recently lead for kids, one of the most common fears expressed about helping a peer who was being picked on was that the tables might be turned on them. Both boys and girls alike were concerned that if they didn't join in or remain silent when someone was being bullied or put down, they might become the target. They felt that intervening would put them at risk.

So we practiced having someone simply stand next to the person being picked on, putting their arm around the person (if comfortable doing so), and walking away together with a word or two of reassurance like, "Hey, don't pay any attention to what they were saying. It wasn't true at all."

Subtle acts can make a big difference. Did you know that when peers intervene to help someone being picked on, the bullying stops in less than 10 seconds 51% of the time. Pretty powerful stuff. So if your kids are afraid to say anything to the person who's bullying, encourage them instead to offer some gesture of support to the person being picked on. That's what upstanders do, and the more upstanders out there, the less bullying we'll see.

                                              

What Do You Think? To leave a comment, click on the word “comments” below (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.”

A Poem to Build Peace and Understanding

I just got a very special e-mail from a teacher who started every single day with this poem. She said it helped set the tone for the day. I hope you find it helpful too. May it build acceptance and kindness among your kids.

I AM AN INDIVIDUAL

I am an individual.

I have dignity and worth.

I am unique.

I deserve respect

and I respect others.

I am part of the human family.

I have something special

to offer the world.

I am committed to

a peaceful world for all of us.

I make a difference,

and so do you.

I can accomplish 

whatever I set out to do,

and so can you.

I am the key to peace. 

From Learning the Skills of Peacemaking by Naomi Drew

Permission to reprint for classroom use.

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.”

A Call for Civility

In his eloquent speech following the Arizona shootings President Obama made a moving plea for civility. Civility is an absolute must, but we need to up the ante and add kindness and compassion to this plea. Our divisive culture with its hate-filled rhetoric and antipathy toward those considered to be “the other” provided a ripe setting for an off-balance person with an ax to grind. An atmosphere of hate can only fuel the fires of hatred, and can become the conduit that allows violent thought to become violent action.

A nine year-old child was killed in the Arizona shootings. We cannot afford to lose any more young lives, either to the violence of a madman with anti-government rage, or to suicide sparked by the cruelty of peers, as witnessed in the deaths of more than five students in the past year.

To prepare young people to function as responsible members of a democratic society, it’s essential that they learn to treat all people with decency and respect, including those who are different or have divergent points of view. Recent events and those of the past year show that we have little time to waste.

The language of hate has no place in our society, be it in the halls of government or in the schoolyard. Kids need positive role models, and right now, they have very few.
Our schools must become safe havens against the hatred that runs rife in our society, places that are antithetical to hatred, violence and bullying.

In order to build a culture of civility, kindness, and acceptance we must be proactive. It’s absolutely essential for kids to learn that cruelty and violence are abhorrent, and we’re not going to accomplish this by just paying lip service. Respect, kindness, and acceptance must be integrated into the very fabric of learning. Imagine teachers across the United States taking time each week to teach lessons that foster civility, compassion and respect, having kids role play being “upstanders” for those who are mistreated. Imagine kids becoming completely accustomed standing up for others in real life because they’ve not only had lots of practice through role play, but because it’s what their school climate and their society supports. Imagine violence and cruelty becoming anathema.

When I went to school it was cool to smoke. Then, after years of anti-smoking campaigns, kids finally got the message that smoking isn’t cool at all – in fact, it’s damaging. Imagine this happening with cruelty, violence, and bullying. Think about a future where kids see a classmate trying to humiliate a peer, and instead of joining in or looking the other way, they step in and help. And imagine all the social capital going to the upstanders rather than the kids who are mean.

Well, I’ve seen it happen. Schools I’ve consulted with and many others have created climates where kindness is “in”, “cruelty “out.” By expecting kindness, compassion, and respect and settling for no less, we give kids the message that this is what’s valued most, and research tells us that what adults value holds a lot of weight in the eyes of children.

In a national survey I ran, 80% of the kids surveyed wanted to learn how to deal with conflict, violence, anger, and bullying. Kids want our help. They want to live in an atmosphere of peace and respect. We can make this happen if we make it a priority, and kids are depending on us to make it a priority now. It’s high time to move toward greater civility, less violence, and less cruelty. We must listen to this need before the tide turns so far in the wrong direction that there’s no turning back.