With 1 in 3 students noting they’ve experienced bullying by the 8th grade, it is important that we focus on prevention.
The number of families whom home-school their children has more than doubled over the last decade. One of the top reasons given by parents is to move a child out of an on-going bullying situation or a negative school climate. Home-schooling provides less exposure to bullying and peer pressure, and a more positive social interaction/influence.
We want to provide our children a safe, positive and healthy place to learn. And while we can control a number of influences in own home, at one point or another, we know our children will inevitably be exposed to bullying. Whether they’re a bystander or the target of bullying, we want them to have the self-esteem to handle the situation, the understanding to know what is happening and the knowledge to know how to respond.
At Lucky Kat World, we have a short interactive video called “Stand Up To Bullying.” This was designed with classroom teachers to help children understand and respond to the three types of bullying they may experience; verbal, non-verbal and physical.
You can view it for free during the month of October at:
https://luckykatworld.com/national-bullying-prevention-month
Often times, parents are unaware their children are even being bullied. Not because we aren’t paying attention, but rather many children and even adults, internalize their emotions. Signs to look out for are lower grades and self-esteem, poor sleeping habits, depression and traits out of their norm.
In older grades, situations where students tease, steal, inflict physical harm, or begin to use more abusive or hurtful language may go unreported by the children who experience the bullying, for fear of further retaliation.
One of the key ways to prevent bullying is by focusing on building a child’s character. Developing good character enhances a child’s self-esteem, it helps facilitate positive attitudes and statistics show that it even improves a child’s academic grades. The stronger one’s character, the more tools they have to rely on in challenging situations that may arise.
Character is a part of everything we do. If you’re teaching your children to never give up, to persevere no matter how difficult the situation or to take responsibility for their actions, you are teaching them the importance of good character. If you encourage them to set and achieve their goals, you’re helping them facilitate good character.
And just as important, but often overlooked in public schools, is the importance of personal character. Our children become better siblings and friends when they demonstrate empathy, compassion, understanding and forgiveness. The more good character is weaved into the fabric of who we are, the easier it is for us to respond in a kind way without having to make the decision to be kind.
If you follow news stories, you may have read about the Florida elementary student who made his own version of a University of Tennessee T-shirt for “Colors Day” because he didn’t own an official one. If you aren’t familiar with the story, some of the kids in the cafeteria teased and ridiculed his design. A teacher stepped in and asked her friends if anyone knew how she could buy a University of Tennessee T-shirt for her student. The University heard about the incident, produced his T-Shirt design and their website crashed with all the orders! The young man now has a scholarship to UT waiting for him. What a wonderful ending to another traumatic bullying story. Unfortunately, not all bullying stories have such a positive outcome.
In 2019, we can’t forget one of the most vulnerable places our children can be bullied; through technology. Pre-teens and teenagers often experience uncontrollable harassment or bullying online. Electronic or cyberbullying includes social media, phones, email, chat rooms, instant messaging and online posts. And once it’s out there, it’s hard to get it to stop.
These forms primarily involve verbal aggression (e.g., threatening or harassing electronic communications) and relational aggression (e.g., spreading rumors/shaming electronically).
Electronic or cyberbullying can also involve property damage resulting from electronic attacks that lead to the modification, dissemination, damage, or destruction of a child’s privately stored electronic information.
Just thinking about what your child could run into online is scary. So what we can do? How can we protect our children beyond home-schooling?
Studies show that parents can help prevent bullying by keeping the lines of communication open. Talk to your children about bullying, encourage them to do what they love, encourage them to model kindness and respect, and encourage them to seek help when they are involved in bullying or know others who need help. Once again, helping your child build strong character is one way to teach them how to help themselves when you aren’t with them.
Finding tools to help teach kids good character can often be challenging. If you are interested in adding Character Education to your home curriculum, you might enjoy LKi’s new K-5 Character Education program called Good Character Rocks!
This new program created by passionate teachers and educators, consists of character cards, grade specific activity workbooks that cover 72 different character traits, fun rewards and incentives and even a robust gaming site and mobile apps called Lucky Kat World. Lucky Kat World is a fun-filled virtual playground filled with over 100 games and activities and 16 animated characters known as the GC Crew. No in-game chat, no shooting games, no violence and no third party advertising. LKW provides good clean family fun weaved with activities that encourage your children to exercise good character.
Lucky Kat World is COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) compliant and requires a parent’s approval to activate a child’s account.
With 10 mobile apps and a desktop app, Lucky Kat World has gone to extreme lengths to ensure your child’s safety. Once inside these apps, your child is protected as their web browser does not allow them to visit other websites and strictly maintains a no-chat policy between players which could create peer pressure. As a parent, we trust this provides extra comfort and peace of mind!
Visit https://luckykatworld.com/national-bullying-prevention-month for more information. During this month of Bullying Prevention, let’s focus on and reinforce these Character Traits; Respect, Tolerance, Acceptance, Kindness and Empathy.
Together we can make our children’s world a safe, positive and fun place to live.
Written by Tammy Schroder, Lucky Kats, Inc.
