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Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 93: Not All Unkind Behavior is Bullying. Here’s How To Tell the Difference
We’ve all encountered unkindness at some point in our lives, but when does teasing or taunting cross the line to become bullying?
For National Bullying Prevention Month, the Connect Canyons crew sat down with two Canyons District specialists to discuss how to spot bullying and respond to it when it’s happening. Karen Brown, a School Psychologist Specialist at Canyons, walks us through how parents can talk with their children about bullying in a way that also promotes open family conversations. We also hear from Wayne Trice, the District’s Social Work Specialist, who talks about the services available across the District.
There are several resources available for anyone experiencing bullying or who may have witnessed bullying. From the SafeUT app, to the Canyons Report Bullying portal, or even Your School Your Voice, there are also resources available through the Canyons Family Center.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 3:Nationally, one out of five students between the ages of 12 and 18 are bullied every year. It's something we've all seen happen, whether it's in the movies, in person or online. Maintaining safe, bully-free learning environments remains a priority in Canyon School District. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, frances Cook. October is National Bullying Prevention Month. To that end, I'm joined today by Karen Brown, school Psychologist Specialist for Canyon School District, as well as Wayne Trice, school Social Work Specialist for the district. Thank you both for joining us. Thanks for having us. I'd like to start with both of you just kind of telling us what is your role at the district. We hear a lot of these titles. As parents, we go well, what does that mean?
Speaker 4:Sure, so I'm Karen. I support the school psychologists in the district. We've got over 40 school psychologists that work in every school. Some are part-time, some are full-time in our schools, depending on the need and the grade level. But my primary responsibility is to those school psychologists helping to promote their professions within the schools, educate them and essentially help students.
Speaker 3:And forgive me, psychologist is different than just your average school counselor, is that correct?
Speaker 4:Sure. So the school psychologists in our district are able to do various testing for psychoeducational purposes, for special education. We do not diagnose any mental health disorders but we certainly do various assessments to see what kind of characteristics our students have. Sure.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Wayne. How about you?
Speaker 2:I would say that the school social work specialist mirrors exactly what Karen mentioned about school psychology. I support the school social workers out in the district with consultation, with training about foundational aspects of school social work, but their jobs do differ from school psychologists.
Speaker 3:And can you go into that a little bit what do our school social workers do?
Speaker 2:School social workers support our students with resources, they support our families with resources and they help students navigate social relationships at school and help to remove barriers that might be present in their education.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Again, I'm already learning things, so this is already helpful. So there are many topics we can. Obviously, that would be under your purview, but this month we're focusing on bullying, and that's not something just students can experience. It's something parents can experience, staff members can experience. Can we talk about some of the key things to know? How can you tell if someone is being bullied?
Speaker 2:That's a pretty big, broad question to tell when somebody's being bullied.
Speaker 2:But I would highlight that bullying and unkind behavior is fairly pervasive in our culture and it really is necessary for schools to manage their school climate so that it's a safe place to learn, because it's really quite difficult to learn when you don't feel safe, and so managing the school climate is a big prospect for everybody in the school. But bullying is pervasive in schools. We see it out on TV. If you watch the Late Show and you see somebody reading mean tweets. That is a celebration of bullying.
Speaker 2:So it really is out into our community. That's pervasive. How you spot someone that's being bullied, there are various indicators, but I believe that parents know their children best and if they're seeing any changes in behavior that they can relate to problems at school, they really should be in contact with the school.
Speaker 3:That's a really great point, Karen. Can you talk to? How do parents start that dialogue? Maybe they are seeing some of those changes in their students' behaviors. What are some healthy ways that they can start that conversation?
Speaker 4:Sure, at home. I think it's most important for parents to know who their kiddos' friends are, understand what those social dynamics are like at school. Ask your students and your kiddos who they're playing with at recess. What are they playing? What is the group as a whole looking to do when they with at recess? What are they playing? What is the group as a whole looking to do when they're at recess? What adults are on the playground at recess? For more of our adolescent students, I think my biggest suggestion would be especially for those kiddos that have social media at home or they've got phones where they're texting with people.
Speaker 4:My biggest suggestion is, parents, read through the phone, look and see what your student is doing online. Ask them questions. It can be as simple as you know what was the funniest thing you saw online today? And that's how a conversation can open Kids, adolescents. Their brains are being wired for life at this point. It's one of the biggest developmental times in our lives is the adolescent time period, and so if our kids are looking at their phones, that's what they're learning to do. They're learning how to manipulate and learn from and interact with the world through their phone. And, as a parent man, it takes time. Trust me, I've got some of my own and it's the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is look through my kid's phone when I just want to disconnect and, like, look through my own phone. But looking through those phones and knowing what the dialogue is, knowing who their friends are and just opening conversations. Usually you can open a great conversation with a snack. Not many kids are turning down food, especially when it's after school or dinner.
Speaker 4:So open that conversation with a snack and say you know what was the funniest thing you saw today? Who did you interact with online? Show me a funny video that you saw. Some of those things can be kind of the catalyst that starts the conversation.
Speaker 3:You know, that also brings up, I think, leading by example. I think as adults we're on our phones a lot more than maybe even we realize that we're doing. There have been many times where I'll be in a conversation even, and I'm realizing I'm looking at my phone going why am I on Facebook right now? I should be engaging in this conversation. So thank you for that advice. I think that's really helpful. Just what's something funny and just something super simple. It doesn't have to be what are you seeing? You know this dark conversation.
Speaker 4:It doesn't have to start with doom and gloom. I think something's wrong, yeah, especially if it's a conversation that's happening all the time, speaking to the fact that kids watch what we're doing all the time.
Speaker 4:There's a number of different studies that are starting to come out based on social media usage, phone usage with our teenagers, and there's a lot of mirroring results from the time that a student or an adolescent spends on their phone compared to how much time the adult in their life spends on their phone, and a lot of the results in terms of mental health catastrophes, almost like ER visits for mental health purposes are very much in line with each other how much time this kiddo spends compared to the parent or the guardian. But I think too, a lot of people might over. I think sitting down as a family at dinner is sadly almost becoming not the norm anymore.
Speaker 4:But if there's times in the day where you can even just start the tradition of asking your kids what was the best part of your day, what was the worst part of your day, I think some people say, like what was the mountain, what was the valley? Or the rose, or the thorn? Different things like that. To start the conversation doesn't always have to mean something's wrong, but it allows the student or your child some space to start the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's say, our parents are starting that conversation and maybe they are seeing something. They think that maybe their child is being bullied or their child tells them about something else that they saw. We know there are resources at the school level. Right, we mentioned psychologists, social workers. We have the counselors that they can contact.
Speaker 2:What are some of the other district resources that we have? We also have the Canyons Family Center, which is a free service after hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, and through that service we do have what's called a mental health intake. That doesn't include a diagnosis but that can set the stage for us determining if that student would benefit from individualized counseling or if we think that they would benefit from a group, a small group that's offered at the Canions Family Center and that's a service that's free outside of school. In school for reporting purposes, certainly the principal is available for any reporting that needs to be done. A school social worker or school psychologist or school counselor can also help navigate a student to determine if it is bullying or if it's mean teasing, but then to offer some resources In the district.
Speaker 2:We do have the SafeUT app that is available to parents and students, and I think that that's one of the first lines of defense is a student knowing where they can go to report something that's happening Absolutely. Where they can go to report and still feel safe in doing so. I think that's a major component of helping students have a safe learning environment is knowing who to go to or how to go and report Within the district. There's certainly lots of resources on our website, on Utah State Board of Education website, on our website, on Utah State Board of Education website, in terms of how to identify bullying, what bullying looks like. In terms of definition, there is a statute that includes a definition for bullying and cyberbullying, and there are also statutes in place for what we expect our educators to be able to do to prevent, protect and educate our students against bullying.
Speaker 3:Do you want to go into those statutes at all? A little bit.
Speaker 2:I think the major component is that it is an educator's obligation to protect a student and intervene when they see something. We cannot turn a blind eye or turn a deaf ear. If we see something, we should leverage our influence to protect our students and give them alternatives. Not shame and humiliate, but educate so that our students feel like they can come to school and have a safe place to make mistakes and have a safe place to recover and try it again. Because, let's face it, even in the adult world, navigating relationships is challenging. Navigating relationships online is challenging and for our students, they need the opportunity to have a safe place to learn how to navigate those problem, solve, make mistakes and then recover.
Speaker 3:What is the difference between bullying and just being mean?
Speaker 4:Overall, when we're talking about bullying and trying to differentiate it between typical developmental being mean exploring your outside world, navigating relationships. Bullying, by definition, is an unwanted or aggressive behavior involving a real or perceived power imbalance, and so typically with that we're looking at the student who's perceived as older, bigger, more popular. Now, picking on a student who is not the intent to hurt, intimidate, humiliate and cause harm needs to be there. Sometimes it's hard to determine what a student's intent is, but that's usually the perception of the adults and the other students around them. But that's usually the perception of the adults and the other students around them. And then ultimately the behavior is repeated over time or it has significant potential to be repeated.
Speaker 4:It is not just a single event. Oftentimes we'll hear very young kids come in and there's a lot of tattling. That happens after recess or lunch, for example, and a lot of elementary teachers have signs on their wall Is it a tell or a tattle? And so the tell things are usually those pieces where we want to make sure that the kids get help from an adult. So if you're telling, if you have something to tell, it's usually because somebody needs help. A tattle is usually I want to get someone in trouble In elementary school. That's how teachers often differentiate it between kids, and that's how you can, as parents, talk about it at home too. Is hold on. Is this a tell, like you must tell and get help, or is this a tattle? We just want to vent and get someone in trouble.
Speaker 4:But I think, keeping those three things in mind is it's unwanted aggressive behavior, usually by someone with a power imbalance to the other. The intent is to hurt, humiliate or cause harm, and it's repeated over time are the three big factors when it comes to bullying, over simply being mean once or twice.
Speaker 3:I think, like you mentioned, bullying can be such a broad spectrum. It can be cyberbullying, it can be emotional bullying, it can be cyber bullying, it can be emotional bullying, it can be physical bullying. So there is so much to look for, so it helps to have those, you know, three points to kind of keep at the forefront of your mind. What message would you like to share with the Canaan's community about our resources, about why we take bullying seriously?
Speaker 2:I would advocate that parents do know their children and they know when there's changes or when things are not quote right and it is necessary for us to help figure out how we can correct things. Even if the nuances and the complexity is outside of our ability to articulate what's going on, we still should be listening to parents and determining how we can make our schools safer. We do have some challenging and complex situations that come up in our schools. I do think that phones make that all the more complex and challenging, but it's necessary for us to educate and support our students, because phones are not going away and so we need to help them learn how to navigate. Of resources in Canyon School District and comparative to other school districts.
Speaker 4:We have more social-emotional support staff in our schools administration.
Speaker 4:We have a lot of support in the schools for students and parents, and while that is there, really what we do at home as parents and families impacts students a lot in terms of how they handle it.
Speaker 4:If they are a student that is being bullied, what kind of protective factors do they have at their disposal? Because we all know that one thing can be said to student A and the same thing can be said to student B and it doesn't land the same way. And so understanding, just as Wayne said, what's going on with our kiddos and knowing who to turn to for help is a great idea. We talk a lot about the bully and what consequences the bully might be getting, but I think what we need to do as parents and educators is talk a little bit more about what we're doing to almost beef up and protect the student who is being bullied. What are we teaching them in terms of how to stand up for themselves, how to let things kind of brush off when should we not brush things off, kind of what those intensity levels are, and not to ignore their feelings, but how to process their feelings and regulate their emotions in this situation just as they would in any other difficult to manage emotional situation.
Speaker 2:Canyons is educating and teaching our students how to navigate some of these complex things and I hope that when the students who are in first grade and having this Thrive Time curriculum will show a difference when we get to graduation in 12 years from now and we can see some changes. But I think the larger part of that is going to be dictated by what is out in our culture and what they're exposed to, because what's out in the community gets brought back into the school and exaggerated quite often. It's not just us educating our students and helping them navigate it, it's also supporting parents, supporting the community and helping the community be kind and notice that everyone has value.
Speaker 3:You know I think you said it perfectly In our day and age it's such a simple idea you think to be kind, yet we have to keep kind of driving that home, and I love your points about helping our students to become resilient, become self-confident, but also knowing when to ask for help, and for our parents to be able to know their kiddos and know when to maybe start asking some of those questions, but in a fun way that also maybe brings back that family dinner.
Speaker 3:It's beautiful to hear all of the resources that we have. I think Canyons leads the way when it comes to resources, both at the school level, at the district level. We have the Safe UT app. We have your School, your Voice. There are ways that if maybe a student or a parent doesn't want to go personally to the school and get their child involved, they can anonymously send that in as well. Thank you both so much for being here. This is an important topic and I think you've shed some great light on what our philosophy is when it comes to bullying here at the district.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:And thank you for listening. If there's a topic you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, send us an email to communications at canyonsdistrictorg at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
