Bully Prevention
Awareness Week
October 7th-
11th
The
week of October 7th-11th has been designated by the
Kansas State Board of Education as Bully Prevention Awareness Week in
Kansas. This action has been taken as a
symbol of the commitment to all students in Kansas to have a safe and nurturing
school environment.
Please
join us in this week’s special initiative to increase awareness. Ask your child to tell you about the
importance of the week,some of things students have talked about at
school and the assembly on Monday, October 7th. By talking to your child about
the importance of kindness and respect for others, you can open up a dialogue
that will support this important work of making Heritage a safe school for
all!
Kelly McGonegle, School
Counselor
Heritage School Theme: Be a H.E.R.O. – Help, Encourage, and Respect Others
Activities
at Heritage will include:
Ø School Counseling lessons focused on
respect and bully prevention
Ø Daily student-led announcements about
kindness, compassion, and respect
Ø Classroom stories and discussions on
bully prevention and kindness
Ø School-wide assembly presented by
motivational speaker, Brandon Lee White
Ø 4th & 5th
grade leadership assembly and activities at Black Bob Elementary
Bullying 101:
Definition: Bullying is unfair and one-sided. It happens when someone keeps hurting,
frightening, threatening, or leaving someone out on purpose. Bullying is carried out with the intent to
harm someone. Bullying is often a
repeated activity. However, bullying may
also occur as a one-time event. Bullying
is about a power imbalance. The person
bullying may have more power due to such factors as age, size, strength,
support of friends, or access to resources and then uses that power in a
hurtful way that is deliberate.
Bullying Behaviors can include:
Physically hurting or threatening to hurt someone, social exclusion, insults,
name-calling, mean gossip and rumors, and cyberbullying.
Who Bullies? People
sometimes assume that only boys bully, but that is not true. Girls also bully others. Boys tend to use more physical or
face-to-face bullying behaviors such as hitting, fighting, and
threatening. These are usually easier to
see. Girls bully using physical and
verbal attacks, but they often use behind-the-back methods that are harder to
see. These more subtle behaviors include getting peers to exclude others and
spreading rumors and gossip. It is
important to note that girls and boys can use both face-to-face and behind-the
–back bullying.
Isn’t bullying just a normal part of growing up? Bullying is not a normal part of growing
up. Confusion about the difference
between conflict and bullying often makes this myth more believable. Peer conflict is inevitable and can’t be
avoided. The thing to remember is that
in a conflict, both sides have equal power to resolve the problem. Bullying involves the intentional, one-sided
use of power to resolve the problem.
What can I do if my child is being bullied? Help your child learn to avoid responding in
ways that reward bullying behavior.
Explain to your child that people who bully are hoping to get certain
reactions. When the bullied child
responds with an assertive response (such as “Stop! That’s bullying!”), the child doing the
bullying may lose interest, and further bullying may be prevented. Make sure to have your child report a
bullying incident right when it happens and get help from an adult at school
&/or a parent. Talk to your child
about how reporting is NOT tattling.
Reporting is done to protect you or another student from harm.
Secondly, I’d
like to recognize another group offering support to our building, our Watch D.O.G.
dads. We had a huge turn out on Tuesday
with a Watch D.O.G.'s Pizza Kick-Off. We had
many dads able to sign-up for a day to spend at Heritage as a Watch D.O.G.
dad. If this is something a dad,
grandfather, uncle, or close family friend would like to be a part of, please
go to the Heritage website and look under parent info. There, you will find a calendar to see what
days are available, along with some general information about the program. If you’d like to be added to our calendar,
please email me your info and a day that works for you.
