Teachers' Tools

(Permission given to duplicate for parents)

Ten Common Mistakes About Bullying: (click to expand)
A guideline for teachers and principals to expand upon and hand out to parents

  • Telling a child to defend himself through physical violence
    1. Get hurt / others could join in the violence against him.
    2. Experience unnecessary emotional trauma
    3. Ridiculed further and labeled as a bully, instigator or worse
    4. Get into more trouble with school staff
    5. Possibly switch to a path of negative behaviors, and accept a role as a troublemaker -It's the Pygmalion effect
  • Ignoring a situation where your child has been ridiculed, excluded or called names
    1. Feeling too exhausted to listen carefully, or pay attention to what your child is telling you.
    2. Don't know how to handle it (Here is an example of how a parent could confront another parent putting the focus on solving the problem rather than casting blame.)
      • "I'm uncomfortable coming to talk to you about this because your child is bullying my child. So how can we as two adults resolve it? or "How can we work together to resolve this matter?"
    3. Rationalizing that your child is exaggerating, over-reacting, and making too much of the situation
    4. Thinking it doesn't happen that often, just sometimes so it's not a big issue
    5. Believing that your child brings on these situations himself
  • Jumping in and doing for your child what she needs to do for herself, or learn to do for herself
    1. Empowering our children means:
      • Teaching them to recognize bully behavior
      • Instructing them to use "I" statements
      • Educating them to state how they feel and why and what they want to have happen to make things right
      • Telling a "safe" adult
    2. Helping our children so they grow into independent mature adults is a parent's objective. We continually adjust our parenting skills to meet our children's growing autonomy.
  • Expecting the problem will go away by itself
    1. Excusing bad behavior as a one time incident
    2. We don't want to cause any problems
    3. Afraid we will look foolish if we confront another parent, teacher or the Principal
      • Asking the right questions serve us well
        • Would you help me find out what really happened?
        • What happened today that caused my child to come home all upset?
        • How can we work together to make these incidents stop?
      • Use "I" statements yourself. "I'm frustrated that…" or I'm uncomfortable because…" or "I feel disappointed/ angry when…" "I feel angry when Jennifer came home in tears telling me that the other girls in her class are invited to your daughter's party except for Jennifer. Did Jennifer do something to upset your daughter? What I really want is to work together with you to resolve this so it's fair to all the girls."
  • Thinking that if someone is ridiculed, left out or called names, they have a right to get revenge.
    1. "It's not what happens to us, it's what we do about it." We are still responsible for what we do, no matter how badly we are treated.
    2. Even when kids are rough and careless, they need to understand they are still accountable for their actions. That's how they learn respect and responsibility.
  • Denying that bullying is a problem
    1. We don't want to face this problem
      • It brings back painful experiences in our own childhood
      • It's unpleasant to talk to another parent