Hello Mama's
I posted a question not along about starting a bully program in our daughters school. I received some awsome ideas that i did use.
My daughter had an incident yesterday with another student, I contacted the concelor who was already aware and called the girls into her office and spoke with them collectively. I was satisfied with the outcome. I began to inquire to her about the school's stand on the bully subject and explained that i had a few ideas, she seemed open to hearing them and stated that they really did not have anything in place. I asked the concelor about the idea of putting together a youth bully prvention team that would consist of some of the schools students grades 5-8 and they could meet maybe once a month and come up with activities and themes to prevent bullying, now i an not a phycologist,social worker ect.. so maybe that is why I do not understand her response which was they may not be able to handle that. I am not sure why!! they are being forced to handle being bullied.
Mama's what are some of the problems that you would see with the school having student leaders representing a no bullying zone (with the staff and volunteers)and discussing with them some ideas on how we can get a handle on this issue? And yes i will have another conversation with her to better understand what she meant but i wanted to hear from you first.
At the schools my kids went to here in Calif. they had a no bulling policy in their schools, it was not tallerated anymore than drugs, ciggarets or acholhol was. J.
Don't snap.
See if your school district already has a plan, or a philosophy, in place.
If so, bring this to the counselor's attention and tell her
you'd like to help implement this in your DD's school.
If the school district doesn't already have a plan,
consider doing some web-searching for plans from other places.
The difficulty may be with bringing children into the administration
of the plan. The counselor may be aware of reasons why the program would need to be directed and run by adults, not with children's participation, at least at the directing level.
Once a program is in place, some children could be designated
as monitors or observers or liaisons.
etc.
Perhaps time, leadership, resources are not available for an anti-bullying campaign?
Probably, she could not (herself, as a counselor), commit to a non-academic activity plan that occurs during school time?
This thing probably needs to start with administration of the school board.
I'm going to agree with Denise. She most likely meant that there aren't the teachers/ resources available for such an activity.
Being in a family of teachers and administration from different districts across our state, I have come to realize how recessions devastate our school systems. They are barely making ends meet and being able to get kids fed and home on school buses.
There are some teachers that may want to volunteer their time, but getting an actual paid school organized event, may not be possible.
You are on the right track though! Ask her if there was a place you could talk to other teachers about maybe volunteering for such a program or maybe even parents could do it after school!
Maybe because you live in one of 5 states that does not have anti-bullying legislation in place for schools yet and with school bureaucracy they are afraid to address the situation until they have legal guidance in place. There is an article on the front page of the paper today - can't remember if it was the News or the Free Press - it seems to be a hot topic right now so maybe they're nervous about being "ahead of the curve" (at least for our state, which actually seems to be behind the curve). I admire you for what you are doing - keep trying! Maybe get other parents on board and plan it as an after school task force so it doesn't look like the school is sponsoring it, per se, if that's what their hesitation is.
It takes a real program, that has been studied and implimneted in other places.
It takes money to pauy for the copies, the time allotted the training etc...
It takes time away from the regular teaching schedule, which let me tell you has to be practically approved by God herself to change.the schedule. and it takes time to train the entire staff.
When our school was preparing for "Character Counts" it took a year of planning, a summer of training (all staff, Teacher and Parent volunteers) and the PTA gave our school the money to purchase the program, ONCE it had been approved by the district.
So if you are serous about this, get your PTA or PTO to get on board and find a GROUP of teachers that are also interested and see what it will take to make this happen.
You can not just want and wish, you have to find out how the system works and do the work..
About 2 weeks ago, the TV show, 20/20, had an episode on Bullying... which they said is "epidemic" in the United States.
If you go to their website, you can read about that episode and get information for parents etc.
I saw this episode and it was very eye opening... and good.
I highly recommend you check out their website for further info on Bullying.
Here is one link, from 20/20, on Bullying In America's Schools:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/TheLaw/school-bullying-epidemi...
They also have many other links, pertaining to Bullying.
all the best,
Susan
A program that you may want to look into is Girls Empowered. (http://www.girlsempowered.com/) They have all kinds of workshops and camps that deal with mean girls, bullying, self-esteem, health, etc. Many of the workshops are at the Franklin Athletic Club in Southfield, but they also do programs throughout the area. They also do programs for schools and scouts. My daughter went to a camp that taught her a lot about how to be a good friend and how to tell if somebody is truly being her friend. It was very helpful.
ETA: A really good book that was used at my kids' elementary school (grades K - 5) a couple of years ago is called "Have You filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud. It talks about everybody having an invisible bucket with good feelings in it and how your actions can take away good feelings from the bucket (be a bucket dipper) or help fill someone's bucket (be a bucket filler). It's explained in a way that even really young children can understand. My son was only 3 1/2 at the time and he learned a lot from it too.
My kids elementary school is starting a positive anti-bully program. It is too young for middle school. It's about filling up other people's bucket. The idea is that when you do nice things, say nice things you fill up the other person's bucket. When you do hurtful things, say hurtful things you take away from that person's bucket. What I like about this is bullying is about power. The person who is bullying feels week and needs to put down the other to fill better about themselves or to feel like they have some power. There have been bullies since time began. We don't need another zero tolerance issue where we just throw away kids because they mess up. They need to be taught how to stand up for themselves and how not to bully. I would suggest trying to find positive messages. Maybe the counselor feels unprepared to combat this issue. I have no idea what resources are available to the schools.
I will stop by my office at my son school and see if they can give me a print out on their no bullly policy.
I think that was a foolish comment her her to say. Is this her opinion or something the school says. Being picked on is not something anyone should endure. Plus it will get in the way of learning.
Perhaps the counselor fears the students on the team becoming targets of bullying for being little "tattle-tales." ??? Perhaps it sounds like a lot of work to the counselor, work which she would facilitate...hence, work for her. Perhaps she needs to know that this proactive approach would hopefully eliminate the reactive work she's doing anyway. I support your idea. It's wonderful, and I am a teacher (elementary). I do remember being a 5th grader and our school having something similar in place, and I was part of that "team." I loved it, felt like a leader; it obviously impacted me, as I still recall it today.
