As the back-to-school bell rings class into session for the new school year, promoting safety, health, and wellness throughout your school halls is a requirement for ensuring that every student has a wonderful year from start to finish.
Encouraging a Bully-Free Zone in Your School
Turn knowledge into power. Educating students, teachers, and parents about how to identify, stop, or even prevent the bullying problem that continues to escalate in America’s schools today will go a long way in creating a welcoming and safe learning environment for everyone.
There are many forms of bullying. Whether bullying is physical, verbal, electronic, or done directly or indirectly, the emotional tolls are significant and have even led to suicide. Additionally, while bullying affects the victim, it also impacts those who bully others and those who witness bullying take place. According to national statistics, nearly 30 percent of middle and high school students have been the target of bullying, while approximately 70 percent of students say they have witnessed bullying across school campuses.
Schoolbullying.gov is an excellent resource for finding and sharing bullying information, including the following:
What to Look for – Signs of Bullying Behavior
- Loss of interest in school or declining grades
- Sudden loss of friends or withdrawal from social activities
- Frequent nightmares or difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Frequently feeling sick or revealing unexplainable injuries
- Feelings of helplessness or decreased self esteem
- Changes in eating habits, including not eating or binge eating
- Lost, damaged, or destroyed personal items, such as clothing or electronic devices
- Self-destructive behaviors that may include self-harm, suicide, or running away from home
Tactics for Preventing Bullying in Schools
Keep Awareness and Communication at the Forefront
- Creating awareness and building an environment where open communication is welcomed will go a long way in creating the opportunities for connection and bullying prevention.
Teach Kindness and Compassion
- Treating others with kindness and having the ability to see things from someone else’s perspective helps students to better understand others and what they may be going through. With this deeper understanding, students may be less likely to bully and more likely to reach out to others unlike themselves.
Create Opportunities to Connect
- Bringing others together helps them get to know one another on a more meaningful level. Learning that what you see on the outside is not always reflective of who a person is or how he or she is doing on the inside is a valuable lesson that can go a long way.
Recognize the Signs
- Being aware of the signs of those who are bullied and those who are bullying others is paramount to recognizing and addressing the problem quickly and effectively.
Encourage a Collective Community
- To effectively prevent or reduce bullying in any school, it takes the whole community to be aware, communicate, and share the responsibility of ensuring that all students have a safe, open, and nurturing environment where they can grow and learn.
Creating a Culture of Awareness and Prevention
Keep bullying awareness and prevention at the forefront by posting reminders that bullying is forbidden on your school campus. At CustomSigns.com, our traditional signs for posting in the hallways or vinyl decals for adhering to classroom doors or windows will keep bullying awareness front and center and encourage potential bullies to think before they act. When the whole school community is actively involved and working together to create an environment centered on kindness and respect toward everyone, positive change is likely to follow.
