Bullying prevention: School bullying, Workplace bullying, Anti-bullying program: Violence prevention: Victim empowerment

Bullies to Buddies™

The sensible alternative to the anti-bully movement

“I wanted to stand up and cheer after hearing these common sense ideas. It was refreshing to hear anti-bullying program thoughts.” – Richard Wilson, Counselor (Spokane, Washington 6.29.06)

“Philosophically brilliant.” – Robert Haines, Counselor, Worcester, Massachusetts

“Keep articulating this loud and clear. I work with several schools that have spent money, lots of it, on ‘Bully Proofing.’ These programs have little of no effect and suck energy out of staff and students alike.” – Michael Monnet, Counselor/Marriage and Family Therapist, Denver, Colorado

“I think this is a radical way of thinking and I love it! I wish I knew how to get all aspects of education on board – principals, teachers and students. I really like the idea of changing victims into victors. Kudos to your program and good luck.” – Denyse Hughes, Counselor, Cincinnati, Ohio

“Excellent, wonderful, practical help. This course should be offered to every school district!” – Meredith Baker, Counselor, Seattle, Washington

“Out of the box!!! Appreciate the fact that someone sees the bullying situation this way.” – Charles Ruffing, Counselor/Case Manager, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

“These are excellent concepts that everyone needs to know! I only wish all schools had to take this training.” – Heather Lanfranchi, Educator, Canton, Ohio

“I got answers/solutions to problems I couldn’t find in other bully programs.” – Donna Becka, Educator, Cleveland, Ohio

“A paradigm shift in understanding bullies…the reason behind the reason, behind the reason, behind the reason…” – Alice Garver, Counselor/Educator, Tallahassee, Florida

“What an amazing way to look at Bully/Victim relationships. It makes so much sense but is certainly not what we’re hearing in schools.” – Julie Frederickson, Educator, Tallahassee, Florida

“It is imperative that public educators adopt these techniques and use them to teach children how to help themselves!! Zero tolerance policies have failed in every endeavor they’ve attempted. Alcohol, drugs, violence, bullying, cheating…in many cases I believe they have taught the children how to be more manipulative.” – Holly Martin, Educator, Omaha, Nebraska

“Your advice is practical and empowering. You take the victim and turn him into the one with power.” – Ann Hofmeier, Assistant Principal, Chicago, Illinois

“Excellent. I wish I’d had this 20 years ago.” – Susan Shaw, Social Worker, Santa Rosa, California

“Thank you! These ideas and techniques will work for me in my classroom and at school. I can’t wait to try them!” – Susan Butler-Graham, Educator, San Francisco, California

“A paradigm shift that is necessary to the survival of schools and families. Listen to it!” – Gregory Golden, Psychologist, West Palm Beach, Florida

“I will definitely talk with my principal about replacing our ‘anti-bullying’ program with this approach. It makes ‘perfect sense’!” – Joan Harper, Counselor, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

“Finally a Bully Program that makes sense!” – Laura Kerstetter, Counselor, Norfolk, Virginia

“Good simplistic approach – Back to basics of putting responsibility back on the individuals and teaching them life skills that are desperately needed.” Jeanellen MacNeal, Counselor/Educator/Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counselor/Rehabilitation Counselor, Norfolk, Virginia

“Thank you for speaking up on the issue! You are a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’. We needed to hear this in this area of the country!” – Mary Schultz, Counselor/Educator, Duluth, Minnesota

“This is the most practical, common sense information I’ve heard!” – Marlane Huber, Case Manager, Indianapolis, Indiana

“This information is wisdom personified.! Eliminating a victim mentality is totally empowering.” – Bonnie Kleiman, Counselor, Dayton, Ohio

“This info presented another way of looking at the bullying problem and how programs today are often part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Than you for the skills.” – Marti Birch, Counselor/Case Manager/Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counselor, Dayton, Ohio

This method makes great sense – more that any other I’ve seen.” – Ellen Lowe, Counselor, St. Louis, Missouri

Student?

Do kids continue to bully you no matter how hard the school tries to stop them?
When you tell adults on bullies, does it make the bullies hate you even more?
Do you wish you knew how to stop the bullies by yourself?
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Parent?

Are you angry because the school’s anti-bullying policies are failing to stop your child from being bullied? Or is your child being accused of being a bully?
Are you thinking of suing the school?
Do you wonder why you can’t get your own kids at home to stop fighting?
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Teacher?

Do you wonder why students keep on bullying each other no matter how hard you try to make them stop?
Do parents complain that you’re doing nothing to stop their children from being bullied?
Do you wish you could spend more time teaching and less time policing?
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Principal or Administrator?

Has your school’s anti-bully policy turned you from an educator into a warden? And does the bullying seem to be increasing in your school?
Is your school facing lawsuits for failing to stop students from being bullied? Do you wish you knew how to defend yourself?
more

School counselor, psychologist or social worker?

Has work become miserable since your school’s anti-bully program made you responsible for getting rid of bullies?
Are you feeling more like a detective than a mental health professional?
Do you wish you actually knew how to get rid of bullies…in your own life as well?
more

The failure of the anti-bully movement

It’s often said that bullying is a skyrocketing problem in our schools. Why? In the years since the Columbine massacre, schools all over the country have been adopting anti-bully programs. We’ve heard countless anti-bully messages on TV. Why is bullying going up instead of down?

Education has a “dirty little secret”: Whole school anti bullying programs usually don’t work – or even make the problem worse! Psychologist David Smith of the University of Ottawa conducted a meta analysis of all the published research on whole school anti bully programs. Know what he found? 86% of the published studies showed that the program had no benefit at all or even made the problem worse! 14% of the studies found that the anti bully program had a mild benefit. Not one produced a major improvement!

What does this mean for victims of bullying? If victims have to rely on others to protect them from bullies, they may be bullied for the rest of their lives.

There are two basic approaches to dealing with bullying:

The law enforcement approach: punish bullies.
The wisdom approach: teach people how not to be victims.

The second way works well. The first doesn’t. And there are many reasons why. Here are a few.

Let's say we're kids in school and you bully me. I tell the teacher or principal and you get punished. Is that going to make you like and respect me? Of course not! It will make you hate me and want to get back at me. You are going to want to beat me up after school, or try to get me in trouble with the school for bullying you. So the next act of bullying is set in motion. The school is going to be constantly busy trying to get kids stop bullying each other, and what the school doesn't realize, it's making kids continue bullying each other.
If the solution is to punish bullies and make them change, who are they? Very few people see themselves as bullies. If you accuse people of being bullies, they usually deny it and often claim that they are the victim! Does anyone come for counseling or therapy complaining, “Help me! I’m a bully!” Of course not. Everyone who comes for help… everyone who is suffering… feels like a victim! The “bully” is always the other person – “its’ not me.” So if the problem is bullies, who are we supposed to help? We need to become detectives and judges trying to apprehend bullies and prove that they are guilty. If you are a victim and you have to depend on the school to get rid of bullies for you, you are going to be a victim for a very long time!
There is far more bullying going on at home than in school. My surveys of thousands of educators and mental health professionals show that their own children are four times more likely to be hit by a sibling at home than by another child in school. If two parents – experts at human behavior – can’t get their own two children to stop bullying each other, how can you expect one teacher to get thirty kids to stop bullying each other? Furthermore, most of these same experts are currently bullying, or being bullied by, someone in their own lives. If the experts don’t know how handle bullying, who is going to teach the rest of us?

What is the Bullies to Buddies™ philosophy?

The only place where everyone is always nice to each other is Heaven, and you first have to die to get in. LIfe is not fair. As long as you are alive, you are going to encounter people being mean to you, and you have to learn to deal with it. This is the goal of wisdom: to give people the tools to handle the difficultes of life. If you know how not to be a victim, no one can bully you, and your problem goes away almost immediately. In order to become happy, you don't have to wait for the world to get rid of bullies for you!

The solution to bullying has actually been know for thousands of years. It is known as The Golden Rule. It means that you have to treat your enemies like friends. Abraham Lincoln understood this. Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this. Jesus understood this. The Buddha understood this. Aristotle understood this. And so do all wise people throughout the world and throughout history.

You can choose the law enforcement approach to bullying, which is the foolish way. Or you can choose the wisdom way. The choice is yours.