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Step 4: Friends Help Friends (Page
Step 4: Friends Help Friends
Ways to Get Help for Friends in Need
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Explain to students that part of friendship is helping out those in need, whether they are your friends or not. The word “friend” should be used interchangeably with “other children,” and students are expected to help their peers and classmates when they are in trouble. If a student sees another child who is upset, mad, or worried, they can lend a helping hand. Use the CARES strategies as tools for helping out another student who is being bullied or left out.
C= Creative Problem Solving - a bystander can use this strategy by helping two children talk to one another and find a solution to the problem. The bystander could witness the bully teasing the target and say “Sally, some of the things that you said to Jenny are mean and untrue. Maybe you should try giving her a compliment instead.”
A= Adult Help - children should use this strategy only after trying to solve the problem themselves, if the target seems extremely afraid, or the situation is very dangerous. Students should find the nearest adult and tell them about the bullying situation, what techniques were tried already, and that adult help is needed.
R= Relate and Join - the principal of this strategy is “strength in numbers”. By joining in on the target’s side and standing up for them, the bystander takes power away from the bully. The helper could say something like “I like the fact that Billy looks different from you or me. Could you imagine if we all looked alike? How boring would that be?”
E= Empathy - this strategy involves sensing how a target feels during an observed bullying incident, and empathizing with them. A bystander can comfort the target after observing the incident, and say “I’m so sorry Joey did that to you. You must feel very sad and upset. I understand how you feel, because he made me feel that way too once.”
S= Stand Up and Speak Out - This technique requires the most courage, but can also be the most effective. Bystanders should be expected to speak out against bully-ing and let others know that they will not tolerate bullying at their school. Bystanders can say things like “You need to stop saying things like that to Ann because she is our friend. We do not tolerate bullying at our school so you need to stop teasing her right now.”
Extension Activity: Create a poster for displaying the protective strategies of CARES. Have students show examples of each situation by writing or drawing pictures by each word to demonstrate the steps.
Learning to Help Others
“Tour Guide” is an exercise that helps students learn to build trust and cooperation with one another. First ask for two volunteers to come forward. Pick one leader and one follower. The follower will stand with their arms out in front of them with their eyes closed. The leader will take both of their hands facing them. Now instruct the leader to begin slowly taking the follower through the room using verbal cues such as “walk straight forward,” or “now we’re going to turn.”
After your volunteers are done demonstrating, pair students off and have them select a leader and a follower. Give students a few minutes to explore guiding and trusting one other and then switch roles. Give students some guidance as they perform this activity by saying things like “be sure to move extremely slowly with no sudden starts or stops,” or “Help guide your partner with your voice so they know what is coming next.”
After children are finished with the activity, involve them in a discussion about their experience. What was it like to be led around the room without using your eyes? Was it hard to trust your partner? How did you like being the leader? Did you do everything possible to help guide your partner?
Role-Play
After identifying the CARES strategies, act out a role-play to practice these techniques. First, ask for volunteers to act out the parts of the target and the bystanders. Have the rest of the students be audience members to help the target. Always have an adult be the bully. First, try acting out the situation with the bystanders doing nothing. After students act it out, ask them, Who had all of the power in that situation? Did anyone help out the target? Whose side were the bystanders on? Point out to students that since the bystanders did nothing, they were on the bully’s side.
Now try again, but have bystanders become active and use some of the CARES strategies. Students could talk to the target, ask the target to join in with their group, or if the situation seems dangerous, go for help right away. Show students how standing up and helping others gives power to the target and takes it away from the bullies. You can even ask the “bullies” whose side they would rather be on and show how the power can shift so that everyone wins in the end!
Situation #1: You and your friends are standing outside waiting for school to start when you notice that Lucy is standing by herself in her bright yellow galoshes. A group of older kids begin teasing Lucy because of her galoshes and Lucy becomes scared and embarrassed. What should you do? Guide students through how they can use empathy to observe Lucy’s emotions and comfort her by saying “Are you ok, Lucy? You look very upset. I know I would be scared if they were teasing me,” or they could relate and join by asking Lucy to join in with the group and stand somewhere else. This can be a good scenario to demonstrate needing adult help. If the older students continually tease Lucy, it is a good time to find an adult.
Situation #2: At lunchtime you are sitting with a group of friends and you notice that the new boy in school, Jeremy, is looking for a place to sit. He comes over to your table and asks if he can sit with your group. One of your friends, Danny, tells him “No, you’re not allowed to sit here.” You feel very sorry for Jeremy and want to do something about it. What can you do? Help students realize that even if the “bully” is their friend, they can still stand up for the target while helping their friend understand that it’s ok to accept others. Students can use empathy by saying things like “Danny, that’s not very nice. How would you feel if you were the new kid in school? Jeremy seems really cool, and there’s plenty of room for him to sit here.” Or use creative problem solving by saying “Danny, you were just saying that it would be nice to have another player on our soccer team at recess. Why don’t we invite Jeremy to join?”
Movement Activity
“Mirroring” is a great exercise to get students working as a team. This activity shows how easily pow-er can shift from one person to another. First, pair up all of the students and have them spread out in the classroom. Have each couple pick person A and person B, and have them face each other as if there is a mirror in between. Person A will start out as the leader making very slow, smooth move-ments while person B is the mirror and follows person A’s movements. You may want to demon-strate this exercise first with a volunteer to show how movements need to be slow and smooth for the other person to follow.
Turn on some gentle background music for atmosphere and have students practice moving arms and legs while staying in the same place. After students have practiced for a while, have them switch leaders. Try this for a couple of turns and then have students start switching leaders on and off by themselves. Encourage students to make transitions between leaders seamless so that no one knows who is leading and who is following. Discuss with students how it felt after completing the activity. What was it like? Was it harder to be the leader or the follower? Did you feel that you were able to work well with the other person? Was it hard or easy to decide who was leading and who was following?
All content for this workbook is developed in collaboration with YouthSeen. For additional information on postperformance wellness resources, please visit: https://youthseen.org/about-us/.
Websites
https://casel.org https://humaneeducation.org https://www.ihollaback.org/bystander-resources/ https://www.stopbullyingnow.com/ https://www.learningforjustice.org/ https://www.thebullyproject.com/tools_students https://diversebooks.org https://diversebooks.org/resources-old/post-4420/ https://wtpsite.com
Suggested Reading for the Classroom
The Invisible Boy
A gentle story that teaches how small acts of kindness can help children feel included and allow them to flourish, from esteemed author and speaker Trudy Ludwig and acclaimed illustrator Patrice Barton.
Quiet Please, Owen McPhee!
Owen McPhee doesn’t just like to talk, he LOVES to talk. He spends every waking minute chattering away at his teachers, his classmates, his parents, his dog, and even himself. But all that talking can get in the way of listening. And when Owen wakes up with a bad case of laryngitis, it gives him a much-needed opportunity to hear what others have to say.
The Power of One
When one child reaches out in friendship to a classmate who seems lonely, she begins a chain reaction of kindness that ripples throughout her school and her community. One kind act begets another, small good deeds make way for bigger ones, and eventually the whole neighborhood comes together to build something much greater than the sum of its parts.
Say Sorry And Mean It: Apologizing From The Heart
Jack’s friend, Charlie, knows how to get away with just about everything: “If you get caught, just say you’re sorry.” But does an apology count if you don’t really mean it? And what happens when the person you’ve hurt knows you don’t mean it? Jack’s about to find out there’s a whole lot more to a real apology than a simple “sorry!”
My Secret Bully
Monica is a target of relational aggression, emotional bullying among friends who will use name-calling and manipulation to humiliate and exclude. But with a little help from a supportive adult—her mother—Monica learns to cope and thrive by facing her fears and reclaiming power from her bully.
Confessions of a Former Bully
by Trudy Ludwig, Abigail Marble (Illustrator) Publisher: Dragonfly Books (2012) After Katie gets caught teasing a schoolmate, she’s told to meet with Mrs. Petrowski, the school counselor, so she can make right her wrong and learn to be a better friend. Bothered at first, it doesn’t take long before Katie realizes that bullying has hurt not only the people around her, but her, too. Told from the unusual point of view of the bullier rather than the bullied, Confessions of a Former Bully provides kids with real life tools they can use to identify and stop relational aggression.
Other Titles Recommended by the Institute for Humane Education
Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed (realistic fiction) Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson (realistic fiction)
Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan (realistic fiction) The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton (fantasy) The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden (realistic fiction) Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith (realistic fiction) Hope in the Holler by Lisa Lewis Tyre (realistic fiction) Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake (realistic fiction)
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James (poetry/picture book) A Different Pond by Bao Phi and Thi Bui (memoir/picture book) Dreamers by Yuyi Morales (memoir/picture book) Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry (realistic fiction/poetry) Front Desk by Kelly Yang (realistic fiction) Give Me Some Truth by Eric Gansworth (historical fiction) Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (realistic fiction/poetry) Miles Morales by Jason Reynolds (fantasy/superhero) Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson (realistic fiction) The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (realistic fiction/poetry) Rebound by Kwame Alexander (sports fiction/poetry) We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell (informational picture book)
Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly (realistic fiction)
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