It’s difficult for a child to learn when their emotions are disregulated or they feel isolated, anxious or unaccepted. These emotions (and many more) can be the result of bullying, so it’s essential that as school leaders, you get ahead of bullying early in the year and know how to address it when it does arise. This Bullying 101 article will help you develop a plan to prevent bullying, inform you on signs of bullying and ways to identify it, how to partner with families, and lastly, it will give you confidence to address bullying effectively.
Jump to...
- Prevent Bullying
- Identify Bullying
- Start With Empathy
- Next Steps: Bullying 101 at School
- Bullying and Student Discipline Solutions
- Preventing Bullying: How Schools and Parents Can Partner
- Teaching Bullying 101 to Parents
- Creating a Clear Mode of Communication for Students and Parents
- School Safety and Mental Health Awareness at Fayetteville
Prevent Bullying
One of the best bullying 101 strategies when shaping young minds is to tell them what TO do, rather than what NOT to do. This approach applies to anti-bullying as well. Rather than continuously telling children not to bully one another, let’s instead focus on helping them grow into kind individuals who have strong character and act with integrity. Build a school culture where differences are celebrated, inclusivity is apparent and positive relationships abound.
Another important aspect of bullying prevention is to ensure that all students and families know your school’s policy. Communicate to your school community that there will be consistent, significant consequences for those who bully others. We recommend sharing this information in a multitude of ways, such as your website, a newsletter or a family handbook.
Identify Bullying
Despite your best efforts to prevent bullying, it may still be present at your school, so it’s essential that you, your staff members and the families in your school community can identify it. Below are some descriptors from the American Academy of Pediatrics that you may find helpful.
What Bullying IS: Bullying is harmful, intentional and constant. It involves a power imbalance and can be physical, verbal or psychological.
What Bullying is NOT: Bullying is not when students merely argue or disagree, or make poor behavior choices.
It is important to note that there are certain groups of children who are more at risk of being bullied. These groups include students with disabilities, the LGBTQIA community, and children who are seemingly different from their peers (very small or overweight), to name a few. Closely observe interactions between students and look for a change in eating or sleeping habits, unusual moodiness, avoidance of situations such as riding the bus or generally seeming withdrawn. In addition, you’ll want to make note of unexplained injuries or (fake) illnesses as well as a decline in academic performance. StopBullying.gov is a great resource to help you dive deeper into this topic.
Start With Empathy
When you hear about bullying try to take a moment, even just a few minutes, to empathize with everyone involved – what this must feel like to the student who is being bullied, what this must feel like to their parents, and what might be going on for the student who is bullying.
This is tough for everyone – most specifically anyone who is feeling unsafe physically or emotionally. We know everyone aspires for schools to be a place where kids can feel safe and secure, and fear of bullying prevents that from happening.
So you hear a bullying incident happens. What now?
Next Steps: Bullying 101 at School
First, there is a difference between a kid being rude, a kid being mean, and a kid bullying.
1 – Communicate what you know as soon as possible to parents.
Sometimes we are hesitant to reach out to parents until we have everything – but we really can and should communicate with what we know.
2 – Learn, learn, learn and question, question, question.
Often learning about what is happening is a bit like peeling the onion – so ask lots of questions, do lots of observations.
3 – Take action to support students.
Move quickly to make sure students feel safe, supported, and trust that the school is taking care of them. Help them connect with other students and help them feel safe.
4 – Prioritize safety.
Prioritize safety – so if desks need to be moved or a student’s schedule needs to be changed, do so.
5 – Stay in constant contact with parents.
There are so many ways for parents to play an active role. It will make parents feel better to be empowered to support their child.bully
6 – Consequences and interventions.
If one child is threatening or making another child feel unsafe, they do need consequences and interventions. This is important both for the learning opportunity for the student who is bullying – as well as for the safety and health of the child being bullied.
Ultimately, like everything in schools, even a stressful bully event is a learning opportunity. We’d love to work alongside you as you learn.
Bullying and Student Discipline Solutions
Possip Reporter and Tennessee AP teacher, Savannah Staley, discusses trends in bullying and student discipline.
Parents, students and staff tell us the negative effects of bullying – low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. As the world goes more virtual, bullying is harder to spot, report, and stop. Still bullying and student discipline are top priorities for educators, administrators, and families alike. In fact, in our Pulse Checks the past school year, bullying and student discipline was one of the top trends across students, parents, and school staff. This is unique.
Here are some bullying 101 tips for addressing bullying, restoring student relationships, and building a positive school culture.
1. Promote a culture of safety.
When we promote a culture of safety, students feel more freedom to learn, explore, and express themselves. Safety is itself, somewhat subjective. So we need to ask ourselves, safe for who?
The goal is not to control students, or to put extreme limitations on their autonomy, but they should feel safe. This means a proactive (rather than reactive) approach to managing bullying and student discipline. You can promote a culture of safety by:
- Establishing whole-school and classroom community norms and expectations. Make sure students know what they can expect – in terms of routines, consequences, and expectations.
- Celebrating achievements as well as vulnerability. Celebrate students in multiple forms for meeting expectations. Celebrate students for the small things – bringing a pencil or pen to class, letting another student go in front of them in line, helping a student pick up papers they dropped. Celebrate individual and school-wide behavioral
- Creating time for student check-ins. You can use an individual check in or a system like Possip or other technology platforms. But you want to give students a space to share what they are feeling and experiencing – and why.
2. Practice restorative practices.
Stopping bullying is important – but not your full aspiration for a great school culture. A safe space without bullying is the floor. You want to go higher – and that includes authentically healing the relationship. Bullying is the result of insecurity, trauma, and pain. So it’s not enough to simply address the behavior. You want to uncover the why underneath. By practicing and modeling restorative practices, you can co-create a culture of healing and trust. Here are some examples of restorative practices.
Hold space for restorative circles within your classroom communities and schools regularly.
Provide opportunities for students to calm their nervous systems and regulate before engaging in restorative conversation.
Get curious and ask questions rather than assuming or blaming.
Focus on the person, not on the behavior.
Practice empathy.
3. Align on a student discipline model and stick to it!
It’s tough to get everyone on the same page. When we invite others into the conversation, there’s often more engagement and support. Consider inviting teachers, families, and perhaps even students, into a conversation regarding your school discipline model. Once you have that discipline model in place, stick to it!
4. Know your students.
This is easier said than done. Still, it is one of the most important ways to prevent bullying or support students going through it. When you’re familiar with your students, you’re more likely to notice abnormalities. Additionally, when students feel known, they often also feel safe to confide in trusted adults. When teaching, students sometimes didn’t want to be grouped together. These reasons weren’t always big enough for me to reconsider my grouping. But sometimes they were. You want to create a culture of trust. At the same time, you want to support students who are learning to trust themselves. As educators, it’s our responsibility to listen and honor these boundaries. There is not a clear way to prevent conflicts. When we work together as a team and prioritize student safety and vulnerability, we make our schools stronger for everyone.
Preventing Bullying: How Schools and Parents Can Partner
Bullying rates are on the rise. According to a survey done by YouthTruth, 1 in 3 students are bullied in schools. As a parent and principal, seeing a statistic like this is hard. Is bullying different or is the definition of bullying changing? What are ways we can be active in preventing bullying?
The reality is, what we the adults think matters a lot less than what the kids think.
We shouldn’t put words into our kids’ mouths, and we should caution against overly inflammatory language. Still, if a child thinks they are being bullied, we need to trust their assessment.
As a school principal, it can seem like an impossible task to be the one responsible for preventing bullying. There are so many places it can happen – before school, walking home, during class, recess, at home through social media, etc.
We find taking one step at a time can result in huge improvements in the school community and culture. Here are some proactive ways to start:
Proactive Ways to Prevent Bullying – Character Building, Beyond
Let’s be real–kids not bullying other kids is a minimum expectation. As such, focusing on bullying prevention can ring hollow. While every kid can run the risk of falling into bullying behavior, as principals and parents we aspire for much for our kids. So let’s raise the bar. Instead of focusing on not bullying with kids, focus on what kind and brave leadership looks like.
When kids can create a vision of themselves of being a kind and brave leader, they start to see their responsibility in treating others kindly. They start to see themselves as one who sets the tone for how others are treated – not just in preventing bullying.
Here are a few ideas of character building structures:
There are programs like The Leader in Me that Possip school Napier Elementary uses. Possip partner Nashville Classical uses their school core values, an acronym called the FIRST values (Focus, Integrity, Responsibility, Scholarship, Teamwork). We have also found holidays like Kwanzaa offer an opportunity to talk about character beyond bullying. Brene Brown has a program called the Daring Classroom that some educators in our network have found interesting.
Preventing Bullying 101 Lessons For Kids
In addition to larger character building work, tactically talking about and teaching anti-bullying is important. At the beginning of the year, think about whole school lessons you could do on bullying prevention. The first week of school is a great time to build trusting relationships with students and staff through these culture building activities or lessons.
Here are a few anti-bullying resources:
- Here is a movie on bullying with curricular resources to show students and have a few lessons on this topic: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/bully/
- Here’s a link to websites, organizations, articles, planning guides, lesson plans, and other resources dedicated to preventing bullying and harassment: https://www.edutopia.org/article/bullying-prevention-resources
- Here’s a link to resources and activities you can use in classrooms to combat bullying: https://www.edutopia.org/article/bullying-prevention-resources
- Here’s a list of organizations that partner with schools to combat bullying and PD resources for bullying: https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/bullying-help-resources-and-partners
- Here are a bunch of resources for principals to help deal with bullying issues: https://www.naesp.org/bullying-prevention-resources
Teaching Bullying 101 to Parents
Teaching parents the signs of bullying and also the difference between bullying and mean moments is a great first step. This is especially important for 6th grade parents coming from elementary school to middle school. Hosting a parent training on bullying 101 with prevention resources and information at the beginning of the year is one way to do this.
You can also send home some activities or topics in a parent newsletter that parents can discuss with their students about bullying prevention.
For parents, bullying starts to get tricky for them too! They start to see things happening to their kid, with their kid, and sometimes see things on social media of concern.
Having parents help teach these topics, equipping them to notice if bullying is happening, and giving them an outlet (like Possip or some other mechanism) to share when they see bullying happening will help you immensely as the school year progresses.
Knowing the differences between a mean moment and bullying will allow students, parents, and teachers to have a common definition of bullying and decide on what action steps to take.
This was something I went through with parents frequently throughout the year when determining the conclusion of a bullying investigation. I made a quick one-pager with the definition of each and referred to that frequently. If the situation ended up being either a rude or mean moment, they should still be addressed and are unacceptable ways to treat others in the school community. The RULER Blueprint tool was effective in resolving those conflict situations along with situational consequences and restorative assignments. Here is also a helpful article to get started on teaching this terminology to your school community:
Here is a framework for assessing the behavior.
Social Media and Bullying 101
A sub-component of teaching parents about bullying can be a Social Media 101. Social Media 101 can give parents tips on how to monitor their child’s social media. This is especially important during the middle school and high school years.
Parents and I have created solutions like:
- Not allowing child to have their phone past 8pm
- Having daily checks of social media messages and posts
- Following child on social media accounts to see content posted
- Only allowing them to have one social media platform
- Downloading a social media monitoring app (examples here: https://www.learningliftoff.com/5-best-monitoring-apps-for-parents/)
- Teaching Correct Terminology to Students, Parents, and Teachers
Creating a Clear Mode of Communication for Students and Parents
Make sure students have, and know, a safe way to communicate to staff if they feel they are being bullied. Some parents have used Possip to help articulate when their kid is feeling bullied or unsafe – knowing the specifics helps the school intervene.
You can also consider having an anonymous “mailbox” outside of your office or in a neutral location that students can slip a form in when they either see a student in need of help or feel they need help but don’t know who to go to.
Also, having a secure online google form for students and parents to submit detailed information about a bullying issue could be a more comfortable method of communication for these sensitive concerns.
If you want help thinking through your anti-bullying strategies, email hello@possip.com or sign up to learn more about Possip with the button below!
School Safety and Mental Health Awareness at Fayetteville
Dr. Claudia Styles, the Supervisor of Federal Programs at Fayetteville City Schools, sheds light on the critical issues of school safety and mental health within their educational community. Recognizing the impact of bullying and the overall school climate on students’ well-being, Fayetteville took proactive steps to address these concerns. Through a grant initiative, they were able to hire three social workers who implemented innovative strategies, including weekly community talks where students could express their feelings in a safe environment.
The data collected using Possip allows Fayetteville to pave the way for long-term success. Dr. Styles shares how the data and insights from Possip surveys help to strengthen their grant applications. Additionally, Fayetteville initiated parent training sessions, leveraging feedback from Possip surveys to tailor their programs effectively. With virtual trainings and targeted interventions, Fayetteville City Schools continues to prioritize the safety and mental health of students, fostering a supportive and inclusive learning environment.
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