1. Understanding &
Responding to Bullying
Part I
Increasing Your Awareness
What Causes Bullying & What Can We Do?
Tools for Strong Families
Activities from “A Parent’s Guide to Understanding and Responding to Bullying”
(The Bully Busters Approach)
By: Arthur M. Horne, Jennifer L. Stoddard, and Christopher D. Bell

2. Increasing Your Awareness of Bullying
Take a few minutes and think of a bullying incident
from your youth:
• What happened?
• Who was involved?
• What role did you play in the situation?
• How did you and others react in the situation?
• How did you feel?
• How would you expect your child to react to the
same incident?

3. What is Bullying?
P—Bullying is purposeful
I—Bullying is imbalanced
C—Bullying is continual

4. Aggressive Play or Bullying?
Aggressive Play
 Voluntary
 Turn Taking
 Equal in size, power, or
experience
 Give and take; winning
and losing possible;
shared experience
 Enjoys the experience
Bullying
 Coercive, ordering,
demanding
 Doesn’t share or take
turns
 Larger, faster, stronger, or
having socially
imbalanced
characteristics
 Bully always wins
 Demands the experience

5. Myths About Bullying
• Bullying is just “kids being kids”.
• It’s not really bullying if no one is physically hurt.
• Bullying happens only on the playground.
• Children will outgrow bullying—there are no lasting
harmful effects.
• Some children are just born rough, and there is nothing
we can do about it.
• It’s best for parents, teachers, and other adults to just
stay out of it.
• Children who are the targets of bullying are bringing it
on themselves.

6. Myths About Bullying
• Weaker children benefit from bullying. It builds
character and gives them an opportunity to “stick up
for themselves.”
• If bullying takes place at school, there’s not much I can
do to help my child change the situation.
• Only boys bully.
• Girls are targeted for bullying only by other girls.
• There’s not enough time to address the problem of
bullying.
• Paying attention to complaints just encourages tattling.

7. What causes bullying and
what can we do?
The most common questions from both
parents and students…

8. Why me?
Why my child?

9. What makes some
children bullies/
targets of bullying?
Risk factors
Protective Factors

10. Risk and protective factors are
sometimes inherent but many are
developed within a child’s spheres
of influence

11. Spheres of influence:
which ones can you affect?

12. Some examples of risk factors:
• Being smaller or larger than other
classmates
• Hitting puberty earlier or later than
most classmates
• Stress in the home
• Being confrontational with others

13. Some examples of protective factors:
• strong self-esteem
• sense of humor
• cares for younger siblings
• academic success

14. How important are these factors?
• Risk factors don’t cause the problem
• Protective factors don’t prevent the
problem
However…
• More risk factors = tendency to respond to
events in negative or aggressive ways.
Protective factors help guard against this

15. Start with your own sphere of
influence
•Notate your thoughts about which aspects you
can and can’t influence
•Come up with some steps to take to help you
make changes in the areas you can affect

16. Tools for Strong Families
Guidelines for Healthy, Happy Families
1. Be Inclusive
2. Be Fun
3. Be Encouraging
4. Be Honest
5. Be Firm
6. Be NICE
7. Be a Source of Security
8. Be Respectful
9. Be a Positive Role Model
10.Be Fair

17. Family Meeting
One of the most important things family
members can do is talk to one another.
Family meetings are regularly scheduled
meetings for the family to discuss guidelines,
behaviors and expectations, and make decisions
as a group. It provides an opportunity for all the
family to come together and identify concerns
and problems.

18. Steps to Successful Family Meetings
Step 1
Set up a time when all members of the family can be present
Step 2
Keep notes
Step 3
Choose someone to chair the meting
Step 4
Use an agenda
Step 5
Reflect on how the meeting went from each family member

19. THE BIG QUESTIONS
A way to successfully approach problems within
your family (problem solving model)
1. What is your goal?
2. What are you doing?
3. Is what you are doing helping you achieve
your goal?
4. If not, what can you do differently?

20. Emotional Intelligence &
Emotional Coaching
Emotional Intelligence: refers to the ability of a
person to monitor his or her feelings, as well as the
feelings of others, and use this information to guide
thinking and behavior
4 Components:
1. Perceiving and expressing emotion
2. Using emotion to facilitate thinking
3. Understanding emotions
4. Managing emotions

21. Raising Emotional Intelligence
Children and adolescents who demonstrate high levels of
emotional intelligence have lower levels of aggression and
fewer behavior problems
1. Become aware of your own and your child’s
emotions
2. Recognize your child’s emotion as an opportunity
for intimacy and teaching
3. Listen empathically and validate your child’s
feelings
4. Help your child find words to label the emotions
she or he is having (“I statements”)

22. Emotional Coaching Activity
Think of a situation in which
you identified an opportunity
for emotional coaching but feel
that it probably could have
gone better.
Briefly describe to your table.
 What was your emotional
reaction to the situation?
 What was your child’s
emotional reaction?
 What got in the way of using
emotional coaching?

23. Modeling Behavior
• Based on the
assumption that most
behavior is learned
through observation
• Essential that we try our
hardest to demonstrate
the behaviors we want
our children to learn
• Can you remember a
time where you
modeled a behavior to
your child?

24. Maintaining a Positive Relationship with
Your Child
• Balancing Support and Firmness; 1 of
the most difficult and universal
challenges of parenting
• Keeping the Door Open
• Making a Commitment
• Resolving Conflicts Peacefully

25. Quesstion & Answer
Reflection Time
Comments

26. Understanding & Responding to Bullying
Part II
This is only the beginning…
Part II
Wednesday, September 29 at 6:30 pm
Topics Include:
• Understanding & helping the bully
• Understanding & helping the targets
• Parents & schools
BE THERE!...or be bullied 