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Kindergarten and Pre Kindergarten parents at Goddard School of Cedar Park ask about tips to deal with bullies encountered in their neighborhood or in other venues in the community. This is part 2 of our last post. Here are some suggestions contributed by Laura Baker, High Five Parenting and written by Jim Fay:
Once the teacher felt that the class had mastered saying, “Thanks for sharing that with me,” in the appropriate way, he started having them practice jumping up out of their seats, putting on the “cool look,” and saying their one-liner.
The next step was for the kids to learn to turn around on the last word and walk away fast without looking back at the teasing child. Needless to say, they all did their practice until the skill was mastered. They even spent some of their recess time practicing this on the playground.
Now that the skill was learned, practiced and mastered, Mr. Mendez could
implement his part of the operation. When children came to him to tattle about others teasing them he consistently asked, “Did you let him get by with it or did you use your ‘cool skill’?”
In the event that child admitted that he had not used his/her skill, the teacher said, “How sad that you let him get away with it. Do you suppose you are going to continue to let him get by with it or are you going to use your skill? It’s your choice, but tattling to me is no longer a choice.”
Mr. Mendez tells us that the amount of tattling and complaining has been reduced by over 90%. He also proudly tells about one of his students who came to him asking if they had to use the one-liner he taught them, or could they make up their own.
This second-grader wanted to demonstrate to the class the one-liner that he used so successfully on the playground. He stood before the class and said, “This other kid on the playground was dissin’ me. He said I had the skinniest arms in the whole school. I put on my ´cool look.´ I grinned and said, ´Bummer, I thought I was cool, man.´ I walked away before he could figure out what to say. Man, I blew his mind!”
All the kids clapped for this skillful second-grader, and the teacher beamed with pride as he thought to himself, “Now that kid is really ‘teaseproofed’ for sure.” You don’t have to wait for the teacher to “teaseproof” your kids. You can do it in your home the same way Mr. Mendez did in the classroom. What a gift you can give your child, and come to think of it, what a gift it is to a parent to know that we can send our kids out into the world “teaseproofed.”
Since the development of the “cool look” skill, many different kids have found sanctuary in its use. One of the most creative applications was seen at a local school where the kids seem to take great pleasure in claiming to do research on the behavior of other kids’ mothers and attacking each other with this information when they are mad.
One kid yelled out to the other in this fashion and the youngster being attacked put on his “cool look”and returned, “I tell her to be nice, but she gets mad when I tell her what to do.” With this he turned and walked away.
The teacher who witnessed this reported that the attacker’s mouth fell open and all he could say under his breath was, “Man, that guy’s weird. He be weird.”
Now the kid who pulled this one off is absolutely “teaseproofed.” Even if kids try to tease him, the attacks will bounce off like Ping-Pong balls off a stone wall.
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