Talk to your kids about bullying: expert
By: Laura Stradiotto
The Sudbury Star
Teaching children the difference between tattling and reporting on their peers is
one of the first steps toward eliminating bullying, says a leading expert.
“If bullying goes unchecked and there’s no positive intervention, it will continue
and will get worse,” said Shawn Shepeard.
“Tattling is getting someone into trouble. Reporting will get someone out of
trouble.”
Shepheard shard his successful community model, Putting the Breaks on
Bullying, with a crowd of 400 Friday in Sudbury.
His talk was part of The Road to Understanding, a conference presented by Child
Care Resources that focused on autism and inclusion, anti-bullying efforts and care for
the caregiver.
“Bullying happens in front of many people and it’s what those bystanders do or
don’t do that’s going to make a difference,” Shepheard said in an interview before his
talk.
The program started as York Region project, but Shepheard has spread the work
to educators, students and parents across the province.
“We try to involve the whole community,” he said, “not only raising the
awareness of bullying, but the things we can do together to prevent bullying.”
Parents should be there to listen to their child and observe behaviours.
“One of the best things is just debriefing at the end of each day,” he said, “asking
how their day was and just be conscious of your child and their friends and what’s going
on not only in their life at school, but outside of school.”
Shepheard said he recognizes the challenge parents face, in terms of finding the
time, when both parents in a family work.
“But it doesn’t take that long, maybe even just 15 or 20 minutes a day, of just
keeping on top of that before it gets to be a bigger problem,” he said.
Shepheard said it’s difficult to determine whether all the talk about bullying is
having an impact on children
“The first thing is raising awareness and a lot of the things people might not think
is bullying, is bullying,” he said.
“Leaving people out is bullying. Calling them names, teasing them is bullying.
Internet gossip is bullying. Sometimes, we just think it’s the physical aspect.”
But with the increase in awareness, the number of incidents rise as well.
“That little peak we see short term helps long term because now students can
identify the behaviours,” he said
Realistically, bullying will never be eliminated.
“But what we can do is support people and give them strategies if something does
happen,” he said.