Posts tagged girl bullying

Turning Bystanders Into Heroes

0
13 years
by in building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying

Try this activity to help kids understand how important their role as a bystander–er, HERO, is in a bullying situation.

Give a child 5 wooden craft sticks.

Ask him to write his name on the first one. Then, tell him to break the stick. The task should be easy.

Emphasize that on our own, we are breakable.

Next, ask each child to write down the names of three people who they know they can count on for friendship and support, on three of the remaining sticks. It can be a parent, family member, friend, or even a pet.

On the remaining craft stick, ask the child to write something that they are good at, such as a sport, art, or even being a good friend to others.

Have the child stack his four sticks, one on top of the other, then challenge him to again try to break the sticks. This time, the task should be impossible.

When I do this activity with kids, usually in schools or troop settings–the expressions on the their faces as they realize the strength of the stacked sticks is priceless every time. I know my point has been made. But I say it anyway:

 

“When you support one another, and have confidence in your own abilities, you become unbreakable. Keep these craft sticks as a reminder of how strong you truly are!”

 

My other reminder/mantra to kids, when we talk about bullying and bystanding, is that it is never OK to do nothing about bullying.  I have kids repeat the phrase.  I encourage them to shout it.  Sometimes, we see if the whole building can hear us!  I want kids to remember this truism.

This week, in light of the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University, it seems especially important.

 

For more ideas and activites to help kids cope with bullying, please check out Friendship & Other Weapons: Group Activities to Help Young Girls Cope with Bullying, available November 15, 2011.

 

 

Teaching Compassion to Kids

1130
13 years
by in building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying, Parenting

Experts agree that fostering compassion in young people is among the best ways to prevent verbal, physical, and emotional bullying.  Check out my post on Psychology Today, featuring seven ways to help develop compassion as a character trait and behavioral style in your child:

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/passive-aggressive-diaries/201111/teaching-compassion-kids

How Friendship & Other Weapons Came to Life

159
13 years
by in anger, assertiveness, Being a Mom, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying, friends, kids, media messages, online, Parenting, parents, passive aggression by children

This morning, an interviewer asked me how the idea for Friendship & Other Weapons came to be.  Thought it was worth sharing with you as well…

 

My previous book, How to Be Angry, started with the fundamental premise that anger is OK; its 15-session curriculum is all about giving children, tweens and teens specific assertive skills to express their anger in constructive, relationship-building ways.  After writing the book, it became obvious to me that there is a large group of young people who are shut out from this basic presupposition that anger is a normal, natural human experience.   Millions of young girls in the United States grow up immersed in a social universe in which “being angry” is equated with “being bad” or, at best, not “being nice.”  (more…)

Social Combat in Schools: Bullying on Anderson Cooper 360

722
13 years
by in anger, bullying, cyberbullying, Parenting

As part of his ongoing series this week on the subject of bullying, Anderson Cooper talks to sociologist Robert Faris and author Rachel Simmons about the concept of “social combat,” and the culture of victimization in schools. This is a really interesting clip, revealing which kids tend to be most involved in bullying and which ones tend to stay above the fray. Revealing.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2011/10/10/ac-bullying-faris-simmons.cnn

Bullyproofing – Four Steps to Build Your Daughter’s Personal Power

0
13 years
by in anger, assertiveness, Being a Mom, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying, e-mail, Facebook, friends, kids, Parenting

What happens when harmless spats over sharing toys are replaced by cruel cyber-rumors about liking boys? Will your daughter know what to do when pint-sized pushes evolve into painful tween shoves? When the simplicity of forming a friendship just by climbing the same jungle gym is replaced by the intricacy of scaling middle-school social ladders, how can you teach your daughter to stand up to bullies?

http://www.jkp.com/blog/2011/10/article-signe-whitson-bullyproofing-four-steps-to-build-your-daughters-personal-power/

Dealing with Rumors, Gossip, and Reputations

995
13 years
by in assertiveness, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying, Facebook, friends, online, Parenting

Check out this great article by Rachel Simmons, as featured in Teen Vogue: http://www.teenvogue.com/connect/2011/09/reputation-rehab?currentPage=1  Simmons shares real life stories of ruined reputations and how girls can cope with social ostracism.

The article is jam-packed with pearls of wisdom, but this quote from one of the gossip-survivors just rings especially true:

Elsa realized that denying the rumors seemed to make them worse, so she decided  to confront them head-on. “The more I was like, ‘It happened. Get over it,’ the  more people would drop it. I think that when you don’t tell people things and  they know it, they become even more invested in figuring out what it is. If  you’re honest and up-front about it, it goes away.”

Read More http://www.teenvogue.com/connect/2011/09/reputation-rehab#ixzz1Z9uExJkF

Re-thinking the “Drama” Approach to Bullying

656
13 years
by in anger, Being a Mom, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, cyberbullying, friends, internet, kids, Parenting, parents

Please check out this is great, thought-provoking op-ed piece from the NY Times.  I whole-heartedly agree that with the authors that:

Interventions must focus on positive concepts like healthy relationships and digital citizenship rather than starting with the negative framing of bullying. The key is to help young people feel independently strong, confident and capable without first requiring them to see themselves as either an oppressed person or an oppressor.

It’s the social worker in me, I suppose; I am a strengths-perspective kinda girl.  In my new book, this is the approach I take.    While the book title Friendship & Other Weapons is used to convey to adult readers the nature of how girl bullying is acted out within relationships, girl participants will come to know their membership as part of a Real Friendships group.  As such, the solution-focused lessons, engaging group activities and relevant discussions will help girls cope with “drama” in honest, relationship-enhancing, self-affirming ways.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/why-cyberbullying-rhetoric-misses-the-mark.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Girl-Caught is a Great Activity to Build Awareness in Your Daughter

0
13 years
by in Being a Mom, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, media messages, Parenting

In honor of September 22’s Day of the Girl, New Moon Girls is launching its Girl-Caught campaign, designed to give each of us an empowering way to comment on media messages about girls and women.

You’ve heard about baby beauty pageants, lingerie marketed to pre-schoolers, and JC Penney’s, “I”m too pretty to do my homework” T-shirt.  The Girl-Caught campaign aims to raise awareness about these ubiquitous and degrading media messages because, as I write in Friendship & Other Weapons, “When girls are aware of how entertainment and advertising images are altered, they are better able to resist the pressures of “measuring up” to the images.”

Get involved in Girl-Caught with your own daughter.  Log in to the New Moon Girls site to download or print out your own Girl-Caught stickers.  Paste them to the negative or positive Girl-Catches you find, then upload them to Girl-Caught!  This is a great, interactive campaign that parents and kids can enjoy–and learn through–together. 

Most of all, Girl-Caught “encourages girls to think critically about media images and to become informed consumers rather
than passive recipients of the media.” (Whitson, 2011).

 

Sticks & Stones: A Four Year Old’s First Experience with Bullying

6
13 years
by in anger, Being a Mom, building self-esteem in girls, bullying, friends, kids, Parenting

Check me out on the Huff Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/signe-whitson/sticks-and-stones-a-littl_b_960576.html

No, seriously, please check me out there.  It’s job security.

Read it.  Tweet it.  Share it.  Like it.

I’m so bossy.

 

Odd Girl Out: Newly Revised & Updated

12
14 years
by in building self-esteem in girls, bullying, Parenting, relational aggression

I got a great little note in my Inbox today from amazon.com:  my pre-ordered copy of Rachel Simmon’s newly revised and updated edition of Odd Girl Out has been shipped!  Hooray–SO looking forward to checking out the four new chapters of strategies and insights written directly for girls, their parents, and the professionals who work with them.   Simmons is one of the pioneers of shining the light on the complexity, subtly, and often-unimaginable cruelty of bullying among young girls and in my book, one of the most innovative, articulate, and forward-thinking women I know.   Can’t wait to read what she has to say in this new version of Odd Girl Out!

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Signe Whitson is an author and educator on bullying, crisis intervention, and child and adolescent emotional and behavioral health. In her articles, books, and training workshops, Signe provides down-to-earth, practical advice for professionals and parents on navigating the daily challenges of living and working with children, tweens and teens.

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