Creating Bully-Free Environments in Child Care: Strategies and Social Skills

1. Eyes on Bullying PREVENTING BULLYING IN CHILD CARE SETTINGS Reference: www.eyesonbullying.org

2. FORM STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH BULLYING INCIDENTS BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THEY OCCUR; • TAKE STEPS TO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT THAT DOES NOT TOLERATE OR ACCEPT BULLYING; • HELP CHILDREN UNDER THEIR CARE DEVELOP SOCIAL SKILLS THEY NEED TO DEAL WITH BULLYING WHEN IT OCCURS LEARNING OBJECTIVES GOAL: CAREGIVERS WILL ACQUIRE SKILLS TO CREATE ENVIRONMENTS SAFE FROM BULLYING

3. BACKGROUND

4. Getting Along Learning to get along with others is a life skill Child care is the first place many children begin to socialize It is ultimately the providers’ responsibility to keep children safe in an environment that is bully-free You also have the power to shape whether children develop behavior that leads to bullying

5. Getting Along – con’t Child care is also where many children have their first experience of being bullied or victimized If bullying behavior is not addressed: These behavior patterns can persist into adolescence and adulthood The behaviors can become increasingly more violent

6. How Bullying Develops WHAT IS BULLYING?

7. Behaviors that can lead to bullying… Children differ in size, skill level, family experiences When they get together, patterns of hurtful behavior can emerge Making mean faces, saying threatening things, grabbing, pushing, falsely accusing, and refusing to play with others may be precede full blown bullying if it becomes repeated and deliberate (see chart next slide)

8. Types of Bullying

9. Bullying characteristics by gender

10. Vicky’s Story Five year-old Vicky waited for all her friends to get their lunches and sit at the table. Then she asked them to raise their hands if they liked chocolate. She raised her hand, and everyone followed. Next she said, “Raise your hand if you like spaghetti.” She raised her hand, and once again so did everyone else. Finally she said, “Raise your hand if you like Carmen.” She didn’t raise her hand, and neither did any of the other girls at the table. Carmen, who was seated near the end, began to cry.* (p. 236) *Kaiser, B., & Rasminsky, J.S. (2007). Challenging behavior in young children: Understanding, preventing, and responding effectively (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.

11. Bullying Prevention Strategies Developing Social Skills

12. Creating a Bully – free environment Requires changing behavior of individuals Must utilize effective strategies Everyone must understand that bullying is harmful, unacceptable, and preventable It is everyone’s responsibility to stop bullying behavior

13. Prevention Strategies Stepwise approach + Consistent messages = Safe environment for all

14. Strategies Systematic Thoughtful Planned

15. Steps

16. Steps – con’t

17. MESSAGES www.eyesonbullying.org • Bullying is not acceptable and will not be tolerated • Working together, bullying can be stopped • It is important to report bullying—this is not ‘tattling’ • If a bully bothers you: • It is ok to stand up for yourself but fighting will only encourage more violence • Walk away • Ask a friend or adult for help

18. Developing Social Skills Bullying damages the physical, emotional, and social well being of its victims It also hurts the bully, because it affects their future social and emotional development Bullying usually begins in preschool years, but does not have to be part of growing up!

19. Teaching Social Skills • Children need to be able to: • Consider and resolve social problems • Stand up for themselves in a respectful way without attacking • Understand and respond in a caring way to what others think and feel • Child care is a setting where they can feel safe learning these skills

20. Teaching Social Skills – con’t Children learn eagerly when they know something is important and have good examples they can understand Take age and developmental level into consideration Presentations, modeling behavior, storytelling, videos, and games are all effective ways to teach social skills

21. Teaching Social Skills – con’t • The three most important social skills for preventing bullying are: Problem solving Empathy Assertiveness

22. TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS

23. Social Problem-solving Prepare yourself with age-appropriate resources Use demonstration, illustrated stories, to help them understand problem solving concepts Use “what would happen if…” to help them think of several solutions and pick the best one Help them find real situations to practice with

24. Social Problem-solving – con’t Practice with situations involving bullying Accept their feelings (frustration, anger, fear) and find non-hurtful ways to express them. Let them know violence is not ok Teach and model calming techniques to practice self-control Teach and model listening skills Children will react to situations the way they practice

25. Empathy Create an atmosphere of acceptance for children to express feelings including how actions make others feel Use stories, pictures, puppets to ask children how something would make them feel and what could be done to make the character feel better Explain that while people may look different, they share the same feelings sometimes

26. Empathy – con’t When one child is in distress, remind others how they have felt in similar situations (falling on playground, etc) Point out situations where children are trying to comfort other children or staff are comforting someone. Discuss how it makes both people feel better.

27. Assertiveness Encourage children to talk to each other when solving conflicts instead of going through the staff. Teach children how to ask for and offer things politely Teach children it is ok to say “no” politely and how to accept a “no” politely by respecting the answer.

28. Assertiveness - con’t Look for events that arise as opportunity to reinforce skills Teach children to try standing up for themselves first, but get help of adult if needed Make sure they understand assertiveness is done in a respectful way See examples next slide…

29. Bullying Actions and Victim Responses Reprinted from www.eyesonbulling.org

30. Bullying Actions & Victim Responses – con’t Reprinted from www.eyesonbulling.org

31. A Closing Thought: “If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.” - Carl Jung

32. Summary In order to create environments that are safe from bullying, we need strategies to use before, during, and after bullying occurs Bullying must not be accepted and tolerated We can help children develop the social skills they are going to need in life

33. More Resources • www.eyesonbullying.org • Books • Articles • Reports • Websites • actagainstviolence.apa.org - audio, video, and training materials to use to teach young children (ages 0 to 8) nonviolent problem-solving • www.stopbullying.gov - prevention/intervention strategies for parents, children (ages 9 to 13), teachers, other school staff, and health and safety professionals. • Many more…

34. Wrap Up & Evaluation • Questions • Evaluation THANK YOU!!