One and Zero: Early Bullying Prevention

Dear Principals, Teachers, Superintendents, Parents and Anyone Interested in Children,

My bullying prevention tip is very fitting for today's date:  10/10, which coincidentally falls within National Bullying Prevention Month.

If you have young children or you teach young children, you'll love the award-winning book, One, and it's companion book Zero, by Kathryn Otoshi.

These books beautifully express the power of stepping up and the importance of feeling whole in your center.

They were so powerful to me that I reached out to Ms. Otoshi and we created One Can Count, which consists of materials and simple activity suggestions that support the messages of respect and leadership.   As a matter of fact, New York State Senator Andrew J. Lanza recently sponsored One Can Count in all 30 of the public elementary schools in his district.  St. John's University hosted the workshop for principals, teachers, counselors,  parent coordinators and graduate students.  As a community we came together to discuss solutions and to focus our attention on encouraging leadership skills at an early age as the anti-bully.

If you want your community to benefit from One Can Count and have questions about how to cost effectively introduce the books and materials into your school districts, contact me at thetangledball@gmail.com.

The equation is as simple as this:

Books + Free Materials + T-Shirts =  Opportunities to Encourage Leadership 

"Sometimes it just takes One."  

Thank you for being a One.

Sincerely,

Susan S. Raisch
Founder of Tangled Ball

Make Every Day A Better One!

Leadership is the act of doing good when no one is looking.

But everyone likes to be recognized, including kids.

It's also leadership to recognize the good deeds of others.

Here's my hot tip for October, which happens to National Bullying Prevention Month.

MEDABO cards.  These little cards bring big smiles and inspire in countless ways.

At a recent One Can Count workshop, elementary school teachers and administrators were encouraged to use the cards to catch fellow staff members in the act of showing kindness.  Kids can also be inspired to pass it forward.  Try asking the students to hold on to one card and to pay the other card forward.  The recipient can be asked to pay it forward again... and again...and again.  Watch the magic happen.  (If you order card stock, kids can write their initials on one and see where it lands at the end of a week.)

It's simple. It's fun. It makes an impact.

MEDABO.

One Can Count Moment

Mike Ollis: A Young Leader Who Gave His Life For Us

Time heals...but anniversaries trip us up and bring us back to that horrible day 12 years ago.

This anniversary brings a new wound for one Staten Island family that may never heal.  Today is the day their son's body returned from Afghanistan.  He was 24.

Mike Ollis was a great kid.  I mean really great. He looks tough in his military photo but I'll always remember him as the 14-year old riding down to the beach community where we lived to see his best buddy, Robert.  

There are no words except to say that Mike was always a leader, even as that teenager with a quick smile and warm style. 

Now he's made the ultimate sacrifice.  

Please keep Staff Sgt. Mike Ollis and his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers on this very difficult day. 

Kindergarten: Good Time to Create Good School Relationship

There are four strings in the tangled ball of bullying that I think are really important:

•  Early Prevention

•  Parenting

•  Parent-School Relationship

•  Role of the Bystander (Upstander!)

I thought of all four of these as I watched the first day of Kindergarten unfold at a school in my neighborhood.

Kindergarten is such a beautiful milestone.  The kids are adorable and excited and the parents are interested in getting them on the right path.

In other words, everyone is anxious to be at their best so it becomes a huge teachable opportunity for the kids and the adults!  Kindergarten teachers have a big job.  They teach kids everything from tying their shoes to reading...but they're also teaching the parents how to be "school ready" and how to get involved in their children's education.

Part of that education is how the kids treat each other (early prevention and becoming upstanders) but also how parents (parenting) should interact with the school and how the school should communicate with the parent (parent-school relationship).

Does your school encourage a healthy parent/school relationship?

Please share the good and/or the bad.  It's one of the key ingredients to a successful school career and we can all learn from each other.

For the Bullied and Beautiful: Shane Koyczan

I was just in Huntsville, Alabama.  School started there on Monday.  It always surprises me because living on the east coast, Labor Day weekend is cherished as the last weekend of freedom.  August seems too unnatural to put on shoes and wrap your head around homework.

For some kids, it's really exciting to see friends and get back in the groove.  For others, it's time to put up invisible shields and figure out how you'll get through every day without a breakdown.

Shane's illustrated poem has been seen by hundreds of thousands but to watch him deliver it himself on a TED Talks stage is so powerful.  He speaks for so many kids today who don't have the ability to put it into words.

We are surrounded by many Shanes but, unlike Shane,  they can't express how they feel.   Can we listen anyway?

The Worst Kind of Bullying

Child abuse is the worst form of bullying.

Each one of us has the power to be the Go-To Adult.  To me, the biggest concern is kids suffering in silence.  How do we get them to talk to a "trusted adult."  We become worthy of their trust.

If kids know we care and they won't be criticized, they will be more likely to talk with us.  There are many reasons kids don't tell an adult about a problem.  One of them is shame.  Another is fear that they won't be understood.

People, including children, are vulnerable and don't want to risk feeling worse than they already feel.  Our culture is becoming a judgmental one.  Just look at our television programs.   We've gotten to the point that everything is a competition (cupcakes aren't even safe) and we're always ready to put someone down.  It's becoming common to pick people apart.

The bottom line is that kids need to feel safe and we're responsible for creating a culture that nurtures their safety.

To change a culture, we need to start young and it begins with teaching leadership.  In order to do that, we have to start valuing leadership ourselves.

If we don't, kids will not have a safe place and no child deserves to suffer or feel alone.