AHS and CPL Team Up for Bullying Awareness Program

Alberta Health Services and the Calgary Public Library are hosting a session called Bullying and Peer Harassment. It runs on Wednesday, February 6 at 7pm in the Fish Creek Library. Please click here for more information.

Thursday Update: with Ms. McGovern

Another community and school update from Ms McGovern:

Parenting for inattention/hyperactive children - January 29: 6:30 to 8pm

Concurrent Disorders in Youth: drug use and mental health - February 6: 6:30 to 8pm


Free Family Skate Party at Deer Run Community Centre - February 8; 1pm to 4pm

CPEP (Community Parent Education Program) is a Hull Services program open to all families that consist of children ages 5 - 17. All classes require pre-registration and Children's Groups are included. Upcoming classes include Transitional Warnings and When/Then Strategies (Jan 30), Planning Ahead (Feb 6), Motivation Systems (Feb 20), Effective Consequences (Feb 27), Problem Solving (Mar 6). See the website for more details.

Deer Park United Church is hostng a LGBTQ teen support meeting on Friday January 31 at 6 pm to 8 pm with guest speaker Becky Van Tassel from the Calgary Sexual Health Centre. If you have questions about this meeting please contact tommelvin@dpuc.ca. 

Thursday Update: with Ms. McGovern

Wilma Hansen's new resource teacher, Ms. McGovern has asked to use this forum to keep parents updated about school events, community meetings, and general information. Some of this will be in the calendar and some will be posted right here each week... here we go:

Jan 13 - 17

Monday:

Sr. Boys Basketball @ 16:30

Tuesday: 

Sr. Girls Basketball @ 16:30

Wednesday: 

Jr. Boys Basketball @ 16:30

Sr. Band Meeting @ 19:00

Parent Association/Council Meeting @ 19:30 in library

Thursday:

Outdoor Ed Ski Trip to Canmore Nordic Centre

Friday:

Wilma Hansen Showcase Assembly during school hours

CES (Community Education Service) Sessions. 

These are FREE sessions for parents, teacher, and those that work with youth in the community. It is recommended to register early as sessions can fill up fast. Register here or call 403.955.7420. For locations and times, click here. You can see the poster for each session by clicking the links below.

Jan 13: Support Anxious Children and Teens: From Recognition to Response
Jan 20: When Youth are in Trouble with the Law: An overview of the youth criminal justice
Jan 23: Teens and Their Encounters with Alcohol and Other Drugs
Jan 28: Beyond the Hurt: Let's make it stop (a bullying seminar)

DDQ Dinner and Dialogue: Bully Proofing Your Kids

Deer Park United Church: 77 Deerpoint Rd SE @ 18:30 - 20:00
A light meal will be served and childcare is available
RSVP by Jan 22 here or for more info ask here

Discipline Decline at CBE

In an interview with recently retired Beaverbrook Principal Jeff Turner, he states that early intervention and quick decisive action is the key to a decline in expulsions over the years. According to the article: in 2007/8, principals recommended 364 expulsions system wide in contrast to just 107 last year. Mr. Turner went on to explain that principals weren't adopting a more lassez-faire attitude toward discipline but that there are more tools available for support.

"The big change: students with problems are now being spotted earlier, and worked with long before they derail and are booted from school. As a result, cases of major bad behaviour are dropping."

"What’s different is all the work that’s gone into preventing that student from reaching the point where they must be moved out of the school."

Anti-Bullying Program

On Tuesday, November 20, parents at Haultain Memorial School had the incredible opportunity to listen to an informative, interesting and helpful talk on bullying. Expert Lisa Dixon-Wells facilitated the session, Dare to Care: Bully Proofing Your Child. On a personal note, when I arrived at the school Tuesday evening, I was not looking forward to sitting in a chair, in the gym to listen to someone speak about one topic for over two hours. However, almost immediately after Lisa began to speak, I became completely engaged with every word she said.

The time flew by, as she spoke with so much knowledge, energy and passion. According to Lisa, the two biggest issues today surrounding bullying are, what she called, "the girl issue: the hidden culture of aggression" and cyberbullying. Before getting into details about the issues, Lisa clearly defined the meaning of bullying, pointing out that the word can be overused which, inevitably, minimizes the real issue. She also acknowledged that bullying is a learned behaviour from home and can be corrected if parents are open to work with their child.

Lisa addressed three major changes in bullying that has happened over the past twenty years. The first change is that children are presenting more challenging behaviors than before. The second change is the younger age at which bullying behavior is occurring in children. The final change in bullying Lisa pointed out is the maliciousness that now exists. Factors such as media, breakdown of families and breakdown of communities have contributed to these changes. The good news is that parents and communities have the power to control these factors and inevitably fight bullying.

An interesting segment of Lisa's talk was centred around, what she calls, "provocative victims." These are children who often are bullied or are misunderstood to be bullies themselves. A provocative victim is often gifted, bright, bored, complex, restless, academic and has a strong sense of fairness and justice. These children socially struggle and tend to be avoided by others because of their lack of understanding with concepts such as personal space and the ability to read body language and tone of voice. Provocative victims will often take a long time to explain things and may tend to make silly noises and gestures. Again, however, the good news is that parents have the power to help these children by teaching social skills. Lisa highly recommends the books, Nobody Likes Me Everybody Hates Me by Michele Borba and Perfect Targets by Brenda Smith Myles for parents of provocative victims.

Other books recommended by Lisa are Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, for parents of girls and Odd Girl Speaks Out by Rachel Simmons, for girls of grade four and up. These books address the issue of bullying amongst girls. For parents of boys, Lisa recommends Real Boys, by William Pollack. She also highly recommends children, parents and educators see the movie, Odd Girl Out, available from amazon.com. Lisa suggested a website for parents, www.getwebwise, that breaks down the lingo children and teens are using with their digital communications. The site reveals the meanings of hundreds of acronyms now used for texting, on line chatting and emailing.

Lisa ended the talk by addressing a concrete formula victims of bullying can use. The acronym, "HA HA SO", stands for: Help, Assert, Humor, Avoid, Self Talk and Own It. Each word is a tool that victims can use in situations of bullying. Our children were taught these valuable tools when Lisa worked with them in the school. She had the students role play and practice the different techniques, depending on the bullying situation.

Thank you to Haultain's Parent Association for funding this invaluable program and thank you to Mrs. O'Connor for bringing the idea to the floor. Finally, thank you to Lisa Dixon-Wells for sharing the Dare to Care program at Haultain and teaching staff, students and parents the life changing skills, facts and concepts around the issue of bullying.

For more information on the Dare to Care program, go to www.daretocare.ca

Steven King Visits a Canadian High School

After a year long effort to have Steven King come to their school, students and staff at Sussex Regional High in New Brunswick had their invitation accepted.  The famous author arrived at the school on Friday after receiving 1,200 letters, videos and artwork for the past year.  A teacher at Sussex Regional commented that King's vast range of work includes several themes teenagers can relate to, such as isolation, looking for belonging, bullying and the perils of revenge.  Read the entire story at www.cbc.ca or click here.

Bullied B.C. Teen Committs Suicide

By now, everyone has heard the tragic story and most everyone has seen the video; a fifteen year old girl committed suicide last week, partly attributed to physical and cyber-bullying.  The B.C. teenager  posted a youTube video in September, describing the bullying experience she endured and ended with her clearly reaching out for help.

This horrible event is fraught with complication and many factors were likely at play; it is improbably simple to say bullying was the only cause.  That being said, there are deadly serious lessons for all our teens and pre-teens; vigilance and action by communities is the only real answer.

Obviously the bullying laws and efforts that have been put in place were not enough to help in this case.  In fact; BC's premier, Christy Clark has gone as far as to say that maybe we need even tougher laws in place to help with this problem.

“I don’t believe for a second that anyone who is bullied doesn’t want to report the fact that they were bullied; they don’t trust that the people to whom they’ll report it will use the information in a way that’s going to protect them,” - read more.

What is clear is that we need to stand as families, friends and as a community to help prevent any thing like this from happening. Mrs. Higgins says, "We are committed at Wilma Hansen to address bullying in an open, dignified way to ensure all our students feel safe." There are many resources at the CBE which can help anyone who is in distress - click here for all help that the CBE offers. 

Another important aspect in this and something that needs to be pointed out to our children on a regular basis is the never ending endurance of the internet.  No digital message sent in any form is ever secure or secret once it is sent.  A picture posted on Facebook or sent via IM or texted, a stray tweet about a friend, a joke comment at someone's expense on Instagram never goes away. If its mean/insensitive/embarrassing now, it will also be embarrassing in twenty years when you're entering a job interview, or about to get married, or your kids are checking up on you.

Infinite digital life is an aspect of the social experience that most of us parents are simply not familiar with and bears deliberate consideration.  It astounds me every time I hear about someone who is surprised that their 'secret' internet activity gets exposed. Amanda's ultimate decision points out that we need to remind our kids often about responsible digital behaviour. 

Do you think enough is being done about bullying?  Have you had an experience that will help our community?  Do you talk regularly to your kids about digital responsibility? Leave a comment by clicking on 'comment' below.

Bullying: Trolls

Here is an excellent post from our friends at Haultain Memorial... Bullying can take on many forms and just like all the other aspects of our lives, the digital age has brought forth a new type of bully: enter the troll. A problem not just for kids; this story and this one outlines the effect this kind of cruelty can have on adults as well.

Mark Kelly and the CBC: Bullying

For a week in the spring of 2012, CBC-TV's Connect With Mark Kelley set up a video booth in a school in Gatineau, Que.  More than 150 students streamed into the booth to pour out their personal anecdotes about bullying.  Some of these are sad, some emotional, and some will make you angry; all of them are compelling...

Watch the show all this week as Gemini award winner Mark Kelley explores the pervasive issues surrounding bullying.