The Bullying Curriculum is written for grades 6-8 and begins in September with a formal lesson for grade 6 on the state laws and the school policy. Assemblies and additional supportive lessons are available for grades N-8. PAWS is designed to supplement the anti-bullying message. In addition, the Giving Back with Ronald McDonald and other outside resources that are brought in to further educate students about making positive choices.
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Internet Safety for Parents It is important to be involved in what your child is viewing and learning...for more information click on the link below.
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Helpful parenting articles for quite reading time when kids are in bed!
How to Beat the Back-to-School Blues
By Nicole Blades
There he was, our son, as sweet as a cinnamon bun, marching confidently into a new chapter of his life: his first day of preschool. We felt like celebrating—or at least doling out a healthy round of fist bumps watching him move into “big boy” status last fall. Frankly, we were also relieved. Despite a small delay involving a slightly burnt piece of toast, we made it out of the house easily. No protests. No crying. No drama.
As we move toward kindergarten and grade school, I can only hope that heading back to school—after a summer of sun and fun—will always be so effortless. However, for many children, the start of the new school year means the end of fun and free time. If most kids had it their way, summer would last forever. But we already know that’s never going to happen, so instead, help them see that there’s a way to return to school buses, backpacks and books with a genuine smile—not a grimace—on their faces. Here are some helpful tips for beating the back-to-school blues.
Give them the 4-1-1.
If your child is starting at a new school—moving to kindergarten from day care or middle school from elementary—they may feel anxious about all the newness. It’s important to give them as much information as possible in advance, says Dr. Rochelle Harris, a psychologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics in Kansas City, Missouri. For example:
Talk through anxieties.
Kids might feel ambivalent or anxious about returning to school for a number reasons. “Whatever the issue, talk about it, but don’t dwell on it,” says Dr. Harris. Also, listen closely to the content, she says. Kids tend to globalize things: I never have fun. School is always boring. “It’s that ‘all or nothing’ thinking that can lead children to feel depressed,” Dr. Harris says. Get them refocused, and challenge that negativity. Remind them about the fun that awaits them at school and on the weekends too. “The key is to normalize it for them and keep a positive spin: ‘Oh, yeah, I hear you, but also remember how much fun you had with your classmates last year. I’m sure this time will be like that.’”
Create a plan of action.
If your child has a legitimate issue that’s leaving them unenthusiastic about returning to school—maybe they struggled with a subject or were bullied—Dr. Harris strongly recommends creating a plan of action and explaining it to your child. “If your kid had trouble in math last year, tell him/her that you are going to start the process of getting them more support, and then follow through,” she says. Or in a bullying situation, let your child know that you will speak to the school and involve the necessary parties to ensure that it’s being looked into and handled.
Get reacquainted with old friends.
With summer camps and family vacations, sometimes your kids don’t see their school friends until that first day back. Dr. Harris recommends reconnecting with buddies a week or so beforehand to get reacquainted. Play dates or, for older children, an easy end-of-summer BBQ in the backyard are great ways to do this. “Suggest that your child call up a friend and coordinate a preschool meetup. Maybe they can arrange to walk into school at the same time on the first day,” she says. A phone call to a friend three or four days ahead can help calm your child’s concerns about going back to school.
Make a special purchase.
Sometimes getting your child excited about the new school year can be as simple as letting them pick out a special item when you’re doing back-to school shopping. “If the latest backpack helps them feel included, and it works with your budget, just buy it,” Dr. Harris says. “It could make a world of difference.”
By Nicole Blades
There he was, our son, as sweet as a cinnamon bun, marching confidently into a new chapter of his life: his first day of preschool. We felt like celebrating—or at least doling out a healthy round of fist bumps watching him move into “big boy” status last fall. Frankly, we were also relieved. Despite a small delay involving a slightly burnt piece of toast, we made it out of the house easily. No protests. No crying. No drama.
As we move toward kindergarten and grade school, I can only hope that heading back to school—after a summer of sun and fun—will always be so effortless. However, for many children, the start of the new school year means the end of fun and free time. If most kids had it their way, summer would last forever. But we already know that’s never going to happen, so instead, help them see that there’s a way to return to school buses, backpacks and books with a genuine smile—not a grimace—on their faces. Here are some helpful tips for beating the back-to-school blues.
Give them the 4-1-1.
If your child is starting at a new school—moving to kindergarten from day care or middle school from elementary—they may feel anxious about all the newness. It’s important to give them as much information as possible in advance, says Dr. Rochelle Harris, a psychologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics in Kansas City, Missouri. For example:
- “If you can, visit the school one week before, to help them learn the layout of the building,” she says.
- Get your kid’s class schedule ahead of time and walk through it with them. “You can decrease a lot of uncertainty and help them get familiar with all of the new components they’re facing.”
- Practice opening their lockers, especially if it’s a combination lock. “It can be a panicky thing for kids if their locker sticks and they can’t open it,” Dr. Harris says.
- Meet the teacher. “Make sure the teacher knows that your child is new to the school or the neighborhood,” she says. “Writing
a letter to the teacher with basic tips and easy requests is a big help. “For instance, let the teacher know that you just moved there or that your child has never been to a school this size.”
Talk through anxieties.
Kids might feel ambivalent or anxious about returning to school for a number reasons. “Whatever the issue, talk about it, but don’t dwell on it,” says Dr. Harris. Also, listen closely to the content, she says. Kids tend to globalize things: I never have fun. School is always boring. “It’s that ‘all or nothing’ thinking that can lead children to feel depressed,” Dr. Harris says. Get them refocused, and challenge that negativity. Remind them about the fun that awaits them at school and on the weekends too. “The key is to normalize it for them and keep a positive spin: ‘Oh, yeah, I hear you, but also remember how much fun you had with your classmates last year. I’m sure this time will be like that.’”
Create a plan of action.
If your child has a legitimate issue that’s leaving them unenthusiastic about returning to school—maybe they struggled with a subject or were bullied—Dr. Harris strongly recommends creating a plan of action and explaining it to your child. “If your kid had trouble in math last year, tell him/her that you are going to start the process of getting them more support, and then follow through,” she says. Or in a bullying situation, let your child know that you will speak to the school and involve the necessary parties to ensure that it’s being looked into and handled.
Get reacquainted with old friends.
With summer camps and family vacations, sometimes your kids don’t see their school friends until that first day back. Dr. Harris recommends reconnecting with buddies a week or so beforehand to get reacquainted. Play dates or, for older children, an easy end-of-summer BBQ in the backyard are great ways to do this. “Suggest that your child call up a friend and coordinate a preschool meetup. Maybe they can arrange to walk into school at the same time on the first day,” she says. A phone call to a friend three or four days ahead can help calm your child’s concerns about going back to school.
Make a special purchase.
Sometimes getting your child excited about the new school year can be as simple as letting them pick out a special item when you’re doing back-to school shopping. “If the latest backpack helps them feel included, and it works with your budget, just buy it,” Dr. Harris says. “It could make a world of difference.”
Moving Beyond "Mean Girls"
by Lyn Mikel Brown
Lyn Mikel Brown is an author and researcher on girls'social and psychological development. When I began writing about girls'social lives with Carol Gilligan in the early 1990s, we were concerned about the ways young women were pressured to always be nice and kind, to fit an ideal that stifled their creativity and voice. Girls in school were more likely to be praised for the neatness of their papers than the intelligence of their ideas.Afterwards, programs popped up across the country to encourage girls to embrace intelligence as a "girl thing," to take higher-level math and science courses, to raise their hands and be heard. The programs worked. Go to most any school these days, and you'll see unabashedly smart, assertive girls excelling in school, applying to college, imagining a world they will help to create and oversee.
It's no coincidence that just as girls were exercising their power and challenging gender roles we saw more concern about meanness and aggression among girls.While they're feeling powerful and in control, girls are up against new pressure to act like traditional nice girls or risk being labeled mean. As a result, many take their strong feelings and competitive urges underground or at least out of sight of adults who might be watching.
These girls are young. They are redefining femininity. These are growing pains. We expect mistakes. If this were all we were dealing with as parents, we could handle it. We could help girls know their thoughts and feelings and speak them respectfully; teach them how to claim their power in ways that respect other girls and boys who are busy claiming theirs.
But this isn't all. The media has grabbed onto this new version of girl power and fueled a mean-girl frenzy. The past few years have offered a torrent of books,news stories, and reality shows portraying today's girls as a breed apart:mean, aggressive bullies in need of controlling. Why? Because it sells. Every day it's a new mean-girl chick-lit book series. Every fall it's a new collection of reality shows: Laguna Beach becomes The Hills becomes Gossip Girl becomes a new and improved (that is, meaner) 90120. No one tells us about the heavy editing that goes into creating such "reality." Nope, better to think it's "girls will be girls."
I've been struck by how often marketers use girlfighting and competition to sell products. They do this because it's attention-getting, but also because it creates anxiety. If girls think a product might reduce the awfulness of being left out or judged by other girls, companies make a lot of money. Friendship and solidarity doesn't sell, of course. No anxiety there.
New studies are telling us that media mean girls are having an effect. Psychologist Norma Feshbach found so much mean and catty behavior in TV shows popular with girls, she concluded that indirect female aggression as shown on TV sitcoms has reached the status of a female character trait, and that girls are trained in social aggression by the media. A new study found that college-age women became just as aggressive after watching scenes of girls behaving aggressively in the movie Mean Girls as they did after watching the graphic violence in Kill Bill.
There's much we can do as parents when faced with the issue of girlfighting. These tips offer practical solutions. Most importantly, we can acknowledge the full range of girls' emotional lives and move beyond simple labels like "nice" and "mean" that box girls in. As novelist Anne Lamott says, "It is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality...reality is unforgivingly complex." We are all complex beings with the capacity to do harm and to do good, sometimes within the same hour. Labeling girls "mean" may make us feel more in control (and maybe a little superior), but not only do we become part of the problem we're trying to address, we forgo the hard conversations about what underlies these behaviors and the real work of supporting the best in girls.
by Lyn Mikel Brown
Lyn Mikel Brown is an author and researcher on girls'social and psychological development. When I began writing about girls'social lives with Carol Gilligan in the early 1990s, we were concerned about the ways young women were pressured to always be nice and kind, to fit an ideal that stifled their creativity and voice. Girls in school were more likely to be praised for the neatness of their papers than the intelligence of their ideas.Afterwards, programs popped up across the country to encourage girls to embrace intelligence as a "girl thing," to take higher-level math and science courses, to raise their hands and be heard. The programs worked. Go to most any school these days, and you'll see unabashedly smart, assertive girls excelling in school, applying to college, imagining a world they will help to create and oversee.
It's no coincidence that just as girls were exercising their power and challenging gender roles we saw more concern about meanness and aggression among girls.While they're feeling powerful and in control, girls are up against new pressure to act like traditional nice girls or risk being labeled mean. As a result, many take their strong feelings and competitive urges underground or at least out of sight of adults who might be watching.
These girls are young. They are redefining femininity. These are growing pains. We expect mistakes. If this were all we were dealing with as parents, we could handle it. We could help girls know their thoughts and feelings and speak them respectfully; teach them how to claim their power in ways that respect other girls and boys who are busy claiming theirs.
But this isn't all. The media has grabbed onto this new version of girl power and fueled a mean-girl frenzy. The past few years have offered a torrent of books,news stories, and reality shows portraying today's girls as a breed apart:mean, aggressive bullies in need of controlling. Why? Because it sells. Every day it's a new mean-girl chick-lit book series. Every fall it's a new collection of reality shows: Laguna Beach becomes The Hills becomes Gossip Girl becomes a new and improved (that is, meaner) 90120. No one tells us about the heavy editing that goes into creating such "reality." Nope, better to think it's "girls will be girls."
I've been struck by how often marketers use girlfighting and competition to sell products. They do this because it's attention-getting, but also because it creates anxiety. If girls think a product might reduce the awfulness of being left out or judged by other girls, companies make a lot of money. Friendship and solidarity doesn't sell, of course. No anxiety there.
New studies are telling us that media mean girls are having an effect. Psychologist Norma Feshbach found so much mean and catty behavior in TV shows popular with girls, she concluded that indirect female aggression as shown on TV sitcoms has reached the status of a female character trait, and that girls are trained in social aggression by the media. A new study found that college-age women became just as aggressive after watching scenes of girls behaving aggressively in the movie Mean Girls as they did after watching the graphic violence in Kill Bill.
There's much we can do as parents when faced with the issue of girlfighting. These tips offer practical solutions. Most importantly, we can acknowledge the full range of girls' emotional lives and move beyond simple labels like "nice" and "mean" that box girls in. As novelist Anne Lamott says, "It is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality...reality is unforgivingly complex." We are all complex beings with the capacity to do harm and to do good, sometimes within the same hour. Labeling girls "mean" may make us feel more in control (and maybe a little superior), but not only do we become part of the problem we're trying to address, we forgo the hard conversations about what underlies these behaviors and the real work of supporting the best in girls.