Bullying Prevention Month this October and we want to set you up with strategies to help your school. These tips will help reduce the drama and create a bully-free school. Bulldog Solution’s mission is to eradicate bullying through social boldness, kindness, and connection. Bulldog Solution strive on giving resources to help educators. Below are the tips we found the most useful.
Prevention:
- Address teasing immediately and talk about the different types of teasing: good teasing, unintentional teasing, and bad teasing
- Identify potential issues that may stir up conflict
- Praise a student’s strengths
- Identify student’s weaknesses in managing conflict and give them strategies to help them
- Model appropriate behavior when working with teachers or other team members
Intervention:
- Separate students from the situation as soon as possible and redirect their attention
- Notify the proper authorities or school leaders
- Write down what happened (documentation)
- Encourage students to talk to parents/families
- Listen to what students are saying
- Listen to both sides of the party separately to get the full story
- Talk to students one on one: let them see what behaviors/conflicts they are causing and the effects it can have
- Speak to individuals versus the entire group to reduce “taking sides”
- De-escalating conflict and negative behaviors:
- Take a “10 second time out”, walk away, and take deep breath
- Teach students how to write or draw out their emotions
- Run a peace circle to facilitate resolution
- Follow up to addressing conflict and negative behaviors:
- Role play conflict situations with students and let them come up with strategies
- Tell the students not to respond right away to conflict situations
- Tell students that removing themselves from a situation and “being quiet” sometimes solves the drama
Education:
- Educate students about the different negative social behaviors
- Talk to students about respect
- Give students suggestions on how to make friends
- Encourage students to spend their time with “real” friends
- Let students know that it is ok to be themselves
- Instill policies, standards, rules, and procedures
- Don’t call students bullies: stay away from labeling the students
- Implement Structure-Repetition-Consistency in the classroom
- Share how they can be kind to each other with specific examples
- Reward students for small kind gestures
- Model kindness and compassion to your students