POLICE ASSOCIATION OF NOVA SCOTIA 171 5. Co-operate with the school in modifying your child's aggressive behaviour. Frequent communication with teachers and/or administrators is important to find out how your child is doing in changing his or her behaviour. 6. Praise the efforts your child makes toward non-violent and responsible behaviour, as well as for following home and school rules. Keep praising any efforts the child makes. 7. If your c.hild is viewing violent television shows, including cartoons, and is playing violent video games, this will increase violent and aggressive behaviour. Change family and child's viewing and play patterns to non-violent ones. 8. Make sure that your child is not seeing violence between members of his or her family. Modelling of aggressive behaviour at home can lead to violence by the child against others at school and in later life. 9. Seek help from a school psychologist, social worker, or children's mental health centre in the community if you would like support in working with your child. What Can Schools Do About Bullying? Schools can intervene effectively to reduce bullying by developing a safe and supportive school climate. A wellimplemented program with parent, teacher, and community support can reduce bullying markedly. Olweus, in his very comprehensive and large-scale school-based program evaluation in Norway, found a reduction of 50 per cent in direct bullying two years after the start of implementation. In addition, both teachers and students reported very positive changes in school climate: improved order and discipline, more positive social relationships, greater satisfaction on the part of students, and reduced vandalism (Olweus, 1991, 1992). The measures which Olweus (1993) considers to be crucial in the effectiveness of an anti-bullying program are as follows: • Awareness and involvement on the part of adults, with regard to bully-victim problems. • A survey of bully/victim problems at the start of the implementation. • A school conference day devoted to bully/victim problems. • Better supervision during recess and lunch hour by adults. • Consistent and immediate consequences for aggressive behaviour. • Generous praise for pro-social and helpful behaviour by students. • Specific class rules against bullying. • Class meetings about bullying. • Serious individual talks with bullies and with victims. • Serious talks with parents of bullies and victims. • A meeting of the school parent-teacher (home and school) organization on the topic of bullying. Olweus also recommends implementation of some cooperative learning activities in the school, teaching of social skills; and formation of a council of teachers and administrators to take the lead in implementation. With regard to the school conference day, Olweus recommends including teachers, administrators, parents, and some students, as well as staff such as school psychologists, nurses, and other support staff. He suggests that the participants be given readings on bullying in advance, and that a video on bullying be shown. Discussion on what needs to be done at the school can be held. The purpose of the meeting is to create awareness of and a collective commitment to reducing bullying at school. While more research is needed, especially with regard to implementation challenges, these are the most carefully evaluated and effective violence prevention programs we have encountered. Additional, helpful suggestions, are provided by Pepler and Craig (1993) who have done considerable research about bullying and aggression at school. These researchers also evaluated the implementation of an antibullying program in four Toronto Board of Education schools, which was adapted from the Olweus Norwegian model. Pepler and Craig suggest a number of measures including the following: • Develop a curriculum which promotes communication, friendship, and assertive skills. • Improve communication among school administrators, teachers, parents and students. • Listen respectfully to bullying concerns raised by students, parents, and school staff. • Avoid sex-role stereotyping (e.g. males need to be strong and tough). • Avoid emphasis on competitiveness at school. • Enlist classmates to help alleviate the plight of victims and include them in group activities. In our experience, the above measures are all part of an effective school-wide anti-bullying program. The same measures which work toward violence prevention are effective in anti-bullying programs. Specific sections of the A.S.A.P manual which are most helpful in implementing an anti-bullying program include: the continued...
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