The End of Bullying Begins at Home
Bullying has reached epidemic proportions. It’s time to go after its root causes and stop it in its tracks. That’s why the web site, lifewithoutbullies.com, presents a practical starting point for families looking for strategies and solutions. The web site explains all about Tools for Life® HomeSTART.
HomeSTART is a comprehensive program in a kit, designed for adults and kids to use at home. It’s fun and easy, but very effective. Step-by-step, with lots of supporting activities and resources, HomeSTART helps families create an environment full of co-operation and respect.
The program starts with how to listen. Really listen. Then it’s all about choosing positive language that everyone understands and appreciates. Using games and tools like Bingo or a Feelings Wheel, children soon begin to recognize first their own feelings, then the feelings of others. In a surprisingly short time, kids are learning to stay calm, use decision-making tools, and choose the best reaction in even the toughest situations.
When children take practical learning like this onto the bus, into the playground or onto the internet, they can hold their own – neither bullied nor bullying – but as peacemakers armed with a happy, healthy sense of self-esteem.
Positive Relationships Are Built at School
The in-home program is based on the same powerful strategies for managing feelings and building relationships that have made Tools for Life® so successful in classrooms.
Over the last decade, Tools for Life has been implemented in hundreds of classrooms and helped thousands of students. During this time, educators, legislators and advocates have increasingly recognized the need to address the well-being of the whole child, to improve children’s social and communications skills, and to work together to combat aggressive conduct such as bullying. Tools for Life exactly fits this need. In fact, the program has earned 100% satisfied and highly satisfied teacher ratings since its inception.
But still, the program isn’t static. Most recently, it has been expanded to include four modules from Early Learning to Grade 8, with more work presently underway. It is also linked to current Curriculum Expectations and Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten guidelines. As well, since Tools for Life progresses step by step, children can start early with play-based basics; and, with the program’s emphasis on emergent learning that promotes self-regulation and relationship building, life-long skills are developed at exactly the right pace in an atmosphere that’s fun and inclusive.
Schools that introduce Tools for Life programs begin to share a common language with their students, and their students with each other. There is a frame of reference for dealing with the ups and downs of relationships. Classroom management is less the issue. More time for learning is the outcome. And when the programs are reinforced at home, the rewards are exponential.
Extract from Brainspace Magazine, September, 2013