'Sociable Kidz' Teaches Children How To Combat School Bullying

As bullying pervades schools nationwide, kids are often left without the proper tools to combat situations or emotionally handle the aftermath. CNN reports that one New York organization is teaching children how to change that.

Sociable Kidz gives children the tools and words to face bullies at school by providing a safe environment to talk about their anxieties with other victims of bullying.

CNN reports:

The most important goal is for the children to gain self-esteem, the facilitators said. Not only will that empower the children to stand up for themselves, it can also help them from being targeted in the first place.

WATCH:

Comments

[Fletch17C]

10:59 AM on 12/13/2010

Although these strategies have merit, they are reactive as opposed to proactive. This is the way we want kids to respond after they have been bullied. Should we not make efforts to prevent the bullying from occurring in the first place? Why are the victims saddled with all the responsibility of ending the abuse? When will the parents of bullies be held accountable for their kids' malicious and cruel behavior?

[reinzig]

12:39 AM on 12/10/2010

I ask the same question I always seem to have when reading an article such as this one:

Where are the adults?

[Manny Peddy]

06:37 PM on 12/09/2010

I have my doubts about these untested techniques that are supposed to work.

I was taught by my parents that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them (an age old tactic that is often repeated), which is not very easy for me to do.

But I have found that frequently, they will cower and run away like cowards when they are really seriously confronted, just as my parents said.

As horrific as our new politically correct culture thinks this approach is, I have not seen anything else that I am convinced will work any better.

For example, I was bullied by 3 kids for more than 2 years when I was a teenager. I tried everything. I complained to adults. I tried to joke it off. I was physically and verbally assaulted, for months and months.

Finally, I took on the biggest one of the 3 who was about 8 inches taller than me and outweighed me by a considerable margin. And if he does not live with permanent brain damage to this day, he is very lucky. But all 3 of them ran away and hid and were terrified of me after that.

I guess it did not seem like so much fun to pick on someone who might not just take it, over and over and over.

[John Mainstream]

05:33 PM on 12/09/2010

Teach these kids to use their fists.

[ebroadcast]

04:38 PM on 12/09/2010

A nice pair of brass-knuckles will do wonders ;) Pow! right in the kisser

[raptor]

07:10 PM on 12/12/2010

When my father was a kid, he carried a sock full of washers.

[ebroadcast]

11:17 AM on 12/13/2010

That would certainly do the trick! ;)

[WoollyMittens]

04:28 PM on 12/09/2010

No amount of self-esteem will help, when you're singled out by a group to use as a scapegoat.

Nobody will ever help the victim of bullying, because dealing with one victim is preferable to the risk of upsetting the larger group of popular kids and their parents.

[WYHKTai-Tai]

02:12 AM on 12/12/2010

I'd have to disagree there. Bullies tend to go after kids they know they can get a rise out of, cry or get some drama going. It's no fun picking on someone who just rolls their eyes at you and walks away.
My kids' school teaches anti-bullying counseling in class from grade 2 through middle school, (I'm not sure about HS, maybe there also). They teach that there are 3 components to bullying: The Bully, the Victim and the Audience. Without an audience most if not incidents of bullying just won't happen. As a bystander or 'audience', they are taught that they are also involved. They are also responsible and should say something, or act to stop it, or go get help, tell an adult. Also because the victim is always pulled from 'the audience', it WILL be one of them next time.
I don't think it works 100%, but overall it's pretty effective. Of course, I'd have to add as a caveate: My kids go to a well funded private school, so there is no violence. The bully would be quickly expelled.