Did you know that October is National Bullying Prevention Month? This week's blog features Martial Artists Against Bullying resources to help start addressing the problem of bullying with your students.
See an example of one of our mat chats discussing bully prevention below:
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What is bullying? If someone disagrees with you, or gets mad at you, does that mean they are a bully? Not usually. Sometimes people just have disagreements. If you meet someone for the first time and they say “you’re ugly,” is that bullying? The answer is no. For it to be bullying behavior, it has to be repetitive. If someone does something that bothers you, but they might not even be aware of it, is it bullying? Again, the answer is no. For the behavior to be considered bullying, it has to be intentional. Bullying must be intentional AND repetitive. Without these two words, anything could be labeled as bullying. Bullying is when someone tries to deliberately hurt other people with words or actions. It is a behavior, not a person. Bullying is mostly psychological and only sometimes physical. People who bully try to take other people’s power away from them. Then they use this power to try to harm others by:
What are some other ways people might bully? |
This week, for your school...
- Talk to your students about what it means to be a bully and how to deal with bullies.
- Be sure to define for younger students what bullying means.
