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Before the coronavirus pandemic pushed San Francisco public schools to shut down in mid-March, Jashlyn Canon's 11-year-old son faced frequent bullying. The quiet, shy fifth grader experienced so much stress and anxiety that he would come home every day and nap for two hours before tackling homework.

Canon's son, who did not want his name published, has been bullied for about three years at Rosa Parks Elementary School's Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program, she said. It's a small school, and teachers there have split up the groups of bullies a few times, but it hasn't really helped.

"He was ready to quit school," Canon said. But switching to online learning, where he isn't in the same classroom or on the same playground with his bullies, has made a huge difference. "He's still anxious about it, but he has experienced a ton of relief now."

While parents all over San Francisco (and all over the country) have scrambled to keep up with their day jobs while also monitoring their kids' transition to distance learning, some parents of bullied kids - and the kids themselves - have discovered a silver lining. For the most part, teachers are better able to keep an eye on students during virtual class time, and that makes it harder for bullies to tease or harm their classmates.

Nina Kaiser, who runs Practice San Francisco , a psychology and wellness center for kids and families in Cow Hollow, says she's noticed similar relief among her clients. She works with families from across the city with children in San Francisco's public and private schools.

"The physical environment is a large piece of where bullying is happening," Kaiser said. That's especially true among kids in kindergarten through fifth grade, who generally aren't on social media yet. "You can't say backhanded things in an online classroom and get away with it. There's not this unsupervised or less-supervised time on the playground."

The shift to distance learning came not long after San Francisco Chronicle reporter Heather Knight was beginning to uncover rampant bullying at Aptos Middle School. Her reporting found that, although teachers and staff do what they can to curb hostile behavior between students, they're often overwhelmed and under-supported.

Before founding Practice SF, Kaiser worked in the University of California's Psychiatry Department, where one of her roles was teaching San Francisco Unified School District counselors how to perform evidence-based interventions with bullying.

"I think the district is trying," Kaiser said. "But it's really hard to supervise social interactions among kids, especially when kids are motivated to have things happen under the radar."

SFUSD spokeswoman Laura Dudnick said that when bullying happens, local schools work to "intervene and educate," rather than punish students accused of causing harm. The aim is to change the behavior in kids who bully and let victims talk about the ways they've been hurt, she said.

Canon's son went through these intervention processes with some of his bullies, but it didn't wind up changing anything, she said. "'Restorative' practices have just taught the bullies to fake an apology and re-offend, and kept authority figures from imposing consequences."

Kaiser agreed that these approaches are "really nice in theory, but in practice, they can fail." They also wind up sending a mixed message to victimized kids about whose responsibility it is to resolve the situation, and who's looking out for them, she said. It can work well in situations where kids are equally responsible for inappropriate behavior, "but if one or more kids are victimizing another, that seems like a better space for administrative intervention."

Although younger grades are experiencing relief from bullying, students in middle and high school may be experiencing as much or more, whether it's on social media or in text messaging, Kaiser said.

SFUSD amps up its "social-emotional learning" programs in 6th through 12th grades, offering Second Step curriculum and Bounce Back support groups, Dudnick said. Those programs, along with lessons in digital citizenship and cyberbullying, have become even more important now that all learning is taking place online, she said.

Canon is relieved to see her son relaxing into online school, and Kaiser says her younger clients vastly prefer online school. "Even if they don't like the academic portion ... they are delighted to be at home," Kaiser said. 'And being at home is more peaceful because there isn't the opportunity for their classmates to say and do mean things."

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Bullied kids find silver lining in distance learning

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Before the coronavirus pandemic pushed San Francisco public schools to shut down in mid-March, Jashlyn Canon's 11-year-old son faced frequent bullying. The quiet, shy fifth grader experienced so much stress and anxiety that he would come home every day and nap for two hours before tackling homework.

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Bullying is defined as any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act(s) or conduct, including electronic communications committed by a pupil(s) that has, or can be reasonably predicted to have, the effect of one or more of the following:

1. Reasonable fear of harm to person or property.

2. Substantially detrimental effect on physical or mental health.

3. Substantial interference with academic performance.

4. Substantial interference with the ability to participate in or benefit from school services, activities, or privileges.

Bullying can be manifested in a variety of forms that include, but are not limited to, the following:

Physical bullying includes, but is not limited to, intentional, unwelcome acts of beating, biting, fighting, hitting, kicking, poking, punching, pushing, shoving, spitting, tripping.

Social or relationship bullying includes spreading rumors, manipulating relationships, exclusion, blackmailing, isolating, rejecting, using peer pressure and ranking personal characteristics.

Malicious teasing among individuals who are not friends with the intention of invoking, harm, fear or intimidation.

Malicious teasing among individuals based on the student's actual or perceived membership in a "protected class."
Protected class includes race, color, ancestry, national origin, nationality, ethnicity, ethnic group identification, age, religion, marital or parental status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or genetic information or association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.

Cyberbullying includes, but is not limited, bullying through messages, texts, sounds or images. Sending or posting of unwanted comments, images, videos, and pictures that are done to intentionally harm or bully a student (whether it is based on protected class or not).

Cyber sexual bullying/harassment includes when a student recipient receives an image and then shares that image to other students through text message, social media, or other electronic means, this is deemed to be cyber sexual bullying/harassment.

Hazing includes, but is not limited to, requiring a student to eat or drink disgusting food/material, endure physical abuse, or engage in physically dangerous or humiliating activities as an initiation to join a student club or team.

Harassment is defined as unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Prohibited harassment also includes intentionally engaging in harassment, threats, or intimidation, directed against school district personnel or students, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to have the actual and reasonably expected effect of materially disrupting classwork, creating substantial disorder, and invading the rights of either school personnel or student by creating an intimidating or hostile educational environment.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of bullying or harassment in a District program or activity, please report the incident directly to your school site administrator.

After receiving the report, a member of the school site administrative team will investigate the reported incident. Other school site members, such as a school site council, dean, or school site social worker, may also assist as necessary. For more information regarding the investigation process, please see the Bullying & Harassment Investigation Handout.

You may also report the incident by filing a Uniform Complaint with the Office of Equity. Please see the Uniform Complaint Procedure webpage for more information.

Our schools work with parents so that our students are safe and happy at school. There are several warning signs that could indicate that your child is experiencing bullying at school. Please be on the alert for:

An unexpected drop in grades and/or interest

Unusual moodiness, depression, anxiety, or crying

Frequent headaches or stomach aches

Loss of appetite or Trouble sleeping

Damaged or missing clothing, books, or other belongings

Unexpected bruises, cuts or scratches

Few or no friends to spend time with

Fear of going to school, riding the bus or walking to school

Taking an illogical or long route home

Additional Resources: Bullying and Harassment - What To Do When It Happens.

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Bullying is defined as any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act(s) or conduct, including electronic communications committed by a pupil(s) that has, or can be reasonably predicted to have, the effect of one or more of the following: Reasonable fear of harm to person or property.

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If you need a health check because your body is not feeling well, or you need a heart check because things are tough and you need to speak with someone, we are here to help!

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What Are The Best Ways To Prevent Bullying In Schools?

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What Are The Best Ways To Prevent Bullying In Schools?

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All 50 U.S. states require schools to have a bullying prevention policy.

But a policy, alone, is not enough. Despite the requirement, there's been a slight uptick in all forms of bullying during the last three years. Bullying can look like experienced basketball players systematically intimidating novice players off the court, kids repeatedly stigmatizing immigrant classmates for their cultural differences, or a middle-school girl suddenly being insulted and excluded by her group of friends.

Bullying occurs everywhere, even in the highest-performing schools, and it is hurtful to everyone involved, from the targets of bullying to the witnesses-and even to bullies themselves. October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it's a good time to ask ourselves: What are the best practices for preventing bullying in schools? That's a question I explored with my colleague Marc Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, in a recent paper that reviewed dozens of studies of real-world bullying prevention efforts.

As we discovered, not all approaches to bullying prevention are equally effective. Most bullying prevention programs focus on raising awareness of the problem and administering consequences. But programs that rely on punishment and zero tolerance have not been shown to be effective in the U.S.; and they often disproportionately target students of color. Programs like peer mediation that place responsibility on the children to work out conflicts can increase bullying. (Adult victims of abuse are never asked to "work it out" with their tormentor, and children have an additional legal right to protections due to their developmental status.) Bystander intervention, even among adults, only works for some people-extroverts, empaths, and people with higher social status and moral engagement. Many approaches that educators adopt have not been evaluated through research; instead, educators tend to select programs based on what their colleagues use.

We found two research-tested approaches that show the most promise for reducing bullying (along with other forms of aggression and conflict). They are a positive school climate, and social and emotional learning.

Building a positive school climate

School climate can be difficult to define, though possible to measure. It is the "felt sense" of being in a school, which can arise from a greeting, the way a problem is resolved, or how people work together; it is a school's "heart and soul," its "quality and character." Schools with a positive climate foster healthy development, while a negative school climate is associated with higher rates of student bullying, aggression, victimization, and feeling unsafe.

The elements of a positive climate may vary, but may often include norms about feelings and relationships, power and how it is expressed, and media consumption. Social norm engineering is a conscious process that builds a positive culture among student peers and school adults that becomes self-reinforcing. Like a healthy immune system, a positive school climate promotes optimal health and reduces the chances of dysfunction or disease.

Leadership is key to a positive climate. Is bullying minimized as a "normal rite of childhood," or is it recognized as the harmful peer abuse that it is? Do leaders understand that uninterrupted, severe bullying can confer lifelong negative consequences on targets of bullies, bullies, and witnesses? Are school leaders committed to promoting all children's positive psychological health, or do they over-rely on punishing misbehavior? Can they discern between typical developmental processes that need guidance versus bullying that needs assertive intervention? Are educators empathic to their students, and do they value children's feelings?

Next, are teachers prepared to deal with bullying? Students consistently report that teachers miss most incidents of bullying and fail to help students when asked. A majority of teachers report that they feel unprepared to deal with classroom bullying. Some teachers bully students themselves, or show a lack of empathy toward children who are bullied. Teachers report that they receive little guidance in "classroom management," and sometimes default to the disciplinary strategies they learned in their own families growing up.

However, reforming school climate should involve all stakeholders-students and parents, as well as the administrators and teachers-so a school's specific issues can be addressed, and the flavor of local cultures retained. School climate assessments can be completed periodically to track the impact of improvements.

Advancing social and emotional learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is well known, and involves teaching skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationships management. (Full disclosure: Brackett and I are affiliated with the SEL program RULER.)

Evidence-based SEL approaches have been shown to deliver cost-effective, solid results. Numerous meta-analyses, research reviews, and individual studies of hundreds of thousands of K-12 students show that SEL improves emotional well-being, self-regulation, classroom relationships, and kind and helpful behavior among students. It reduces a range of problems like anxiety, emotional distress, and depression; reduces disruptive behaviors like conflicts, aggression, bullying, anger, and hostile attribution bias; and it improves academic achievement, creativity, and leadership.

A study of 36 first-grade teachers showed that when teachers were more emotionally supportive of students, children were less aggressive and had greater behavioral self-control, compared to the use of behavior management, which did not improve student self-control. One meta-analysis showed that developing emotional competence was protective against becoming a victim of bullying; social competence and academic performance were protective against becoming a bully; and positive peer interactions were protective against becoming a bully-victim (one who has been bullied and bullies others). A series of longitudinal studies showed positive effects into midlife (e.g., fewer divorces, less unemployment) and even cross-generational effects of early SEL. Compared to a matched control group, the children of the adults who participated in the Perry Preschool Project had less criminal involvement and higher educational and employment achievement. A cost-benefit analysis of six SEL programs found them to be good investments, with $11 saved for every $1 spent.

Teachers also benefit from SEL. Those with emotional and social skills training have higher job satisfaction and less burnout, show more positive emotions toward their students, manage their classrooms better, and use more strategies that cultivate creativity, choice, and autonomy in their students. Teachers report that they want more SEL support to cultivate their own emotional and social skills, and to better understand their students' feelings. But few teacher training programs focus on growing the teachers' emotion regulation skills.

Bullying at different age levels

SEL approaches should be developmentally wise, since what is salient and possible for children changes at different ages.

For example, preschoolers are expelled from school at the highest rates of all, but the neurological hardware for their self-control is only just developing. Only then are the connections between the emotion circuitry and the more thinking regions of the prefrontal cortex beginning to be myelinated (insulated for faster connectivity), something that will take until the mid 20s to complete. An SEL program like PATHS or RULER that teaches young children language for feelings, and strategies for thinking before acting, can develop better self-regulation.

Sometimes, adults confuse normal developmental processes with bullying. For example, children begin to reorganize their friendships midway through elementary school, something that can naturally create hurt feelings and interpersonal conflict. It should not be misconstrued as bullying, though, which involves intentional, repeated aggression within an imbalance of power. Normal development also includes experimenting with power, and these normal dynamics should be guided safely toward developing a healthy sense of agency, rather than a hurtful exertion of power over someone else.

Finally, the onset of puberty marks the beginning of heightened sensitivity to social relationships, an especially important time to cultivate skills for kinder, gentler relationships. Unfortunately, this is the period when bullying spikes the highest. And while some strategies work well for younger children (for example, advising them to "tell a trusted adult"), this option may fail with teens, and the breakpoint seems to be around the eighth grade. Older teens require approaches that are less didactic and leverage their need for autonomy, while affirming their values and search for meaning. Physiologically, the brain changes during puberty confer a second chance for recalibrating their stress regulation system. That opportunity should be constructively seized.

Approaches should also take into account individual differences between children. Even SEL programs can stumble here, over-relying on just one or two emotion regulation strategies, like breathing or mindfulness. But children vary in their temperaments, sensitivities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. The best SEL approaches guide students toward discovering strategies that work best for them-strategies that are emotion- and context-specific, personalized, and culturally responsive. This approach requires unconventional flexibility on the part of the educators.

And, finally, approaches work best if they are not standalone pedagogies or from kits that end up in the classroom closet at the end of the year. In order to be effective, skills should become fully embedded across the curricula and the entire day, in all settings, and implemented by all adults-in other words, infiltrating the ecosystem. Only approaches used and taught as intended are successful.

Schools can't do this alone

Families matter, too. Bullying in schools sometimes arises from harsh parenting practices or sibling bullying at home.

Even parents' workplaces matter. Adults experience bullying in their workplaces at about the same rate as children in schools, and it's even found among teachers and in senior living communities. In other words, bullying is not just a childhood problem; it is a pervasive human problem. And children are not buffered from the wider social world-bullying of children who belong to groups targeted in the national political discourse has spiked on playgrounds nationwide.

Ultimately, we need a substantial shift in our mindsets about the importance of children and their feelings. Children are more likely to thrive when we nurture their humanity, and offer them language and strategies and values to help them identify, express, and, thus, regulate their feelings. When parents, teachers, and administrators gain new awareness into the complex roots of bullying and adopt new strategies for addressing it, schools can lead the way. The kids are counting on us.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools?

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A new study identifies the most effective approaches to bullying prevention.