Bullying in School and School Counselors

Recently a fourth grade student in Florida made headlines due to the bullying he received after he made a shirt using notebook paper to show support of his favorite college football team, the Tennessee Volunteers. As a Tennessee fan myself, can I just say, “Go Vols!” and get that out of the way? Anyway, this story has sparked a lot of conversation about bullying, and has made people start wondering why bullying is bad and what the effects of bullying are. In this post we will share 5 tips to stop bullying in school. It is our hope that these tips will help your students see that bullying is not ok.

Before we dive into the 5 tips, I want to talk about why bullying in school has become such a commonly discussed problem these days. Consider this article by Benjamin Conlon that shares the difference a decade makes. Ten years ago if a student experienced an embarrassing scenario at school, his/her classmates would laugh and forget about it within a day or two. Social media now connects students through posts that never disappear! One embarrassing scenario that would have been insignificant a decade ago can now grow and spread at viral rates. Pair that with the fact that other students’ popularity can rise or fall based on sharing the perfect viral content. The number of likes or re-shares a student gets serves as instant gratification for his/her ego.

Stop Bullying in School with a Buddy Program

You might have read this post about how a mentor program changed my school. I still say that starting a mentor program has been one of my greatest successes as a school counselor at my school. Our high school Key Club members served as mentors. They paired up with my elementary students based on their availability, similar home life, and/or interests. I do have a flair for the dramatic, but I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say that lives have been changed through this mentoring program. One major transformation has been that pairing our elementary students with a high school advocate instantly eliminated bullying in my students’ lives. This could be because the bullies felt intimidated by the high school student friend of their bullying target. OR it could be because I tried to make sure the bullies were assigned a mentor, too.

Stop Bullying by Spreading Kindness

That previous paragraph was a great lead-in for this section. I always tell my students that we have no way of knowing what others are going through at home. Wouldn’t life be easier if we could all wear a button that explained, “My cat died today. Be nice to me,” or “I made a bad grade and I’m afraid of taking it home.” We are generally nicer to people if we KNOW what they are going through in their personal life. The challenge is teaching students how to be nice even though we don’t know what others are going through. Now, I’m not saying the target should find an extra dose of braveness and be nice to the bully. I’m just saying implementing a random acts of kindness campaign might pay off!

I was recently talking with another school counselor who told me about her whole school kindness initiative. Kindness became the underlying theme behind everything they did. Teachers talked about kindness, even during math! Students signed a kindness contract stating they would be kind to others. The counselor was able to use the kindness contract any time a student got in trouble for rude comments or bullying. She said the whole language of the school changed and it just became a more pleasant place altogether.

Use Bullying Lessons

I believe that the definition of bullying has changed. We used to use it in relation to a schoolyard bully, or someone who took another person’s lunch money. I have found that both students AND parents need to be educated on what is and what isn’t bullying. This lesson teaches students the difference between a one time occurrence where another student is being mean, when a student is joking (which is still wrong), and when to call it bullying. Plus these monsters are adorable! The lesson also comes with an anti-bullying pledge. I have kept all of these pledge cards together and in the event a student gets in trouble for bullying, I will pull the card out and remind the student of the promise he/she made.

Create a Reporting Method

I always tell my students to TELL SOMEONE if they or someone they know is being bullied. I have tried to drill the phrase “See something, Say something” into their heads. My students need to know that they can tell me (their counselor), their parent, their teacher, or any other adult who can help them. I added a form to my school counseling website so that anyone can go online and fill it out to notify me about bullying. I hate reading stories about students who committed suicide as a result of being picked on at school. The worst part about these stories is when their friends say that they knew about it. Many times they say that they wished they would have told someone who could help.

Implement Social Emotional Learning

Ever heard the phrase, “It takes time to turn the Titanic around?” Same with bullying. Bullying isn’t going to go away overnight. The need for social emotional learning is becoming evident as educational leaders are realizing the phrase, “You have to Maslow before you can Bloom” is true. The social and emotional needs of students should, at the very least, be taught simultaneously with academic lessons. Addressing these social emotional needs will eventually lead to teaching the whole child. Until all needs of our students are met, bullies may still feel the need to fill an emotional hole by hurting others. If you’ve been around me for more than 5 minutes, you’ve probably heard me say, “Hurt people hurt people.” It’s not meant to be a chant… “Hurt people! Hurt people!” <– that’s wrong. Instead, it’s just saying that people who are hurting often try to hurt others either physically or emotionally… also known as bullying.