A bully prevention Strategy for schools?
Can bullying Be Unlearned?
The theoretical basis I decided to use in these two strategies is the Dodged Social (SIP) Information Process Theory. This is also included in learning theories. Sigelman and Rider (2018), This theory involves overall social interaction in school, family, and community settings. (SIP) has a strong base in students who present negative, aggressive, or conduct disorder behaviors. Mazzone et al. (2021) explain that the (SIP) has six stages that focus on the student's moral decisions when processing information in social environments. The six stages are as follows: stage 1, searching for the info; stage 2, interpreting the situation; stage 3, formulating a goal; stage 4, thinking of a response; stage 5, assessing what the response will be; and stage 6, deciding on the student’s response. The authors further state that this theory may also be applied to young adults and school staff, as the main focus is social information processing.
Strategies to Stop Bullying in Elementary School
Strategy One: Building Grit and Strengthening Resilience in Children
When working with students in elementary school as professionals, we are not 100% aware of which stage or level each child is in their coping skills, resiliency, and grit level when experiencing bullying. We need to understand the necessary characteristic traits for building grit and resilience. The goal is for school staff and teachers to help children develop their courage while learning to resolve conflicts and build the strength of their character; this will allow students to persevere through any setbacks to achieve crucial long-term goals within their lives. When it comes to building resiliency, we want to make sure that the child is given the capacity to recover quickly from those setbacks.
By teaching children how to build grit, we want to ensure we have a goal and a purpose (dealing with bullying). With this goal and purpose, we want to ensure that we are walking through the steps required for the student to reach their goal and encourage them to create a dream or visualize their purpose or goal. Next, we want to help them find a passion, and with this, we want to assist through engaging activities that will help them pursue their interests in their purpose and help them identify and understand what it takes to accomplish that passion. Thirdly, there's something called the hard thing rule, which utilizes people around the student to help them work through hard things and get to the finish point. And then lastly, we want to ensure that the child is receiving something of a reward, whether at school, in a community activity, or with the family as they're working towards building their grit. The goal is to teach grit through whatever means possible, allowing them to have frustration as they learn to develop their grit. Make sure to offer praise and let the child try tasks on their own and set the child up for success. With self-encouragement and modeling grit, the child, in the end, can celebrate the skill they just built.
For the second part of this strategy, building resilience while the student is in school, we want to ensure that we utilize specific literature that provides social stories and solutions to overcoming and building resilience. We want to ensure that resiliency needs are met through relationships, as in working with the child, working through peer opportunities, and observational learning in building resiliency, which may involve adults and older peers modeling resiliency. We want to encourage risk-taking, allow the child to take age-appropriate risks, and then reset and rescue the child when they need help building this resiliency. We must make sure that we will enable them to ask for help when required by providing a reframe when faced with the challenge, and this will help them build a better brain function, strengthening their prefrontal lobe that will help them manage their behaviors and feelings. Overall, we want to ensure that while building resiliency, they can exercise their options for resiliency, acknowledge their efforts, assist them in building their problem skills, and, lastly, help them develop gratitude as they make their resiliency. Strategy one may assist in building the child up even before they experience the bullying. The following strategy will focus on the overall climate that the school staff presents to help the child utilize these prior skills when experiencing bullying.
Strategy 2: Promote a Bully-Free School Climate
In promoting a bully-free climate within the school, the National Bullying Prevention Center. (n.d.). The first step is identifying and educating what bullying is. I recommend that school staff present a bullying prevention education during the first week of school. This education should focus on the different types of bullying, such as physical bullying, social bullying, virtual bullying, and cyberbullying. According to Ragozzino and O’Brien (2009), The next step would be to provide a method for dealing with bullying. The method may include telling a trusted adult, not showing your feelings immediately, avoiding bullying, acting confident, and responding neutrally. When it comes to students who bully others, Stopbullying.gov. (n.d.). Explains that there needs to be a reprimand or consequence protocol. This can include several stages, such as level 1 bullying, where the child may not realize that they are bullying; level 2, where the child may be acting out of anger or emotional outburst; and Level 3, where the child intentionally is bullying and is aware of what bullying is. In assisting the bully in understanding that this is a zero-bullying climate, I also recommend a school staff meeting with the principal, school counselors, and the student’s parent and guardian to discuss the bullying behaviors.
Furthermore, I would suggest that the student would be able to see the school counselor regularly. This may help the student understand the importance of not bullying and how it affects others. Within this counseling process, the counselor may also help the student understand where this behavior comes from and provide family counseling to see if anything is happening at home. Lastly, the parent and student need to sign a behavioral contract to understand future steps in bullying consequences. Ultimately, in the end, if the bullying continues to happen, there needs to be a consequence of suspension and or expulsion from school. Expulsion from school at the elementary level may seem harsh, but as a mental health trauma therapist, I have seen my fair share of students as young as six years old almost pass away due to extreme levels of bullying.
References:
Mazzone, A., Yanagida, T., Camodeca, M., & Strohmeier, D. (2021). Information processing of social exclusion: Links with bullying, moral disengagement, and guilt. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101292
National Bullying Prevention Center. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pacer.org/bullying/
Ragozzino, K., & O’Brien, M. U. (2009). Social and emotional learning and bullying prevention links to an external site. Retrieved from http://www.promotprevent.org/sites/www.promoteprevent.org/files/resources/SELBullying.pdf
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2018). Life-span human development (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Stopbullying.gov. (n.d.). Prevention at school. Retrieved from http://www.stopbullying.gov/prevention/at-school/index.html
