Dare to Care Parent Night

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 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 Rebekah Heinrichs 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