1. Early Childhood and Bullying
7/18/2019
Early Childhood and Bullying
Beverly Benton, LSCSW; Registered Play Therapist
Beverly Benton, LSCSW; P.O. Box Cimarron, Ks

2. Is bullying the same for Early Childhood?
7/18/2019
Is bullying the same for Early Childhood?
More research has been done in the upper elementary and teen groups than Early Childhood
Actually much more common in EC
Fewer skills
Educators are not looking for it
Younger children need to be taught using experiential and are often in more autonomous settings
Need to front load the bullying problem
Beverly Benton, LSCSW; P.O. Box Cimarron, Ks

3. Who is an Early Childhood bully?
In EC male bullies tend to have a good social network, this is less true for females
Victims tend to have fewer reciprocal friends in the social groups.
Typically developing children in early childhood are not good at empathy until about 6-7
They often do not have good language skills
They are not very good at understanding emotions or how to regulate them

4. 7/18/2019
When and why bully?
It happens in setting in which there is more autonomy
Maybe fewer skills at playing, therefore unable to develop meaningful activity
Less guidance and expectation from teachers
Bullying in EC is more common because children have less refined social skills and behavior and emotional regulation skills
Home life may be without responsibilities to treat others well (regardless of income)
Home life may have limited resources and members must fight to have a share
In EC, the bully is rewarded by respect from their peers, worth it even though they get into trouble occasionally.
As children mature, with high quality environments they learn to develop friendships, empathy and self-regulation
Beverly Benton, LSCSW; P.O. Box Cimarron, Ks

5. How do we teach anti-bullying to early childhood
Have class meetings and reinforce during one on one situations.
From the first day of school, talk about what bullying is and what it is not
How to stop it, do puppets or role modeling
When it occurs, talk with both children and let them come up with the solution
This helps the bully make restitution and give victim a voice and chance to be made to feel okay.
Restorative justice – “
Adults in the classroom need to practice and utilize reflection
“I see you are feeling angry. I can see your face is scrunched up and your eyes are wide open. You are upset that they have the ball and you want it.”
More focus on helping victim gain self confidence in their abilities to say stop
More play, more teacher/child relationship building

6. How do we teach anti-bullying to early childhood
Take time to connect on a personal level with each child
They say the three most important factors to having a successful classroom is
Relationships – enjoy each other
Relationships – trust each other
Relationships – do anything for each other
More focus on the VICTIM
Teach them to say no or I don’t like that
Its best if they can work it out, rather than tell the teacher
The teacher may not respond the way the child hopes
It takes the skill away from the child if the teacher intervenes
And “what if they don’t do something about it?”

7. How do we teach anti-bullying to early childhood
Early childhood programs must move toward focus on social-emotional
Teach teachers how to set up rich learning environments
Guide toward longer times at each activity
Research reports that it takes min to “get in the zone”
Less academic
Less rigor
Less sitting, worksheets

8. What I would like to see Reduce direct instruction
research shows no correlation between direct instruction in p-k and future performance, in fact, some children feel disheartened and begin to dislike school at the time they should be loving to learning.
Bring back play
remove from the high academic expectation to enter kinder
Less sitting, fewer minutes at circle time
Reduce the frequency of screens in Early Childhood classrooms
We aren’t sure what it does to the young brain
More games and personal interactions, LAUGHING
Red light – teaches self control
Simon says – teaches following adult requests
Ring around the Rosie – we are all together

9. Other things to consider
More support for parents – get them into the classrooms to help and observe
Public service ads to begin to educate parents and the community on the importance of play, because many believe that good early childhood education looks like Middle School and feel their children are not in high quality because they don’t do worksheets.
Explore Restorative Justice for all ages, including preschool

10. Resources
Kyle Snow, Home Resources/Blog/Bullying in Early Childhood, 10/27/2014
Carlsson-Paige, Nancy, How ‘twisted’ early childhood education has become – from a child development expert.
Eyes on Bullying in Early Childhood, 20on%20Bullying%20in%20Early%20Childhood_1.pdf
Totally Normal Objects, Nancy Carlson-Paige, bz/, January 16th at 9:00 minutes of radio program.
“New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.”
By Alison Gopnik, March 16, interest/2011/03/preschool-lessons-new-research-shows-that-teaching-kids-more-and- more-at-ever-younger-ages-may-backfire.html