We are excited to be kicking off our Sources of Strength program with our middle school students this spring! In this program, our students will be able to identify where they can find their “source of strengths.” Students will also learn to build resiliency and create positive connections with their peers.
Developmentally, middle school students are at the point where their peer relationships become one of their top priorities. Sometimes these relationships and conversations include teasing, but there is a difference between teasing and bullying. Teasing ”can be a fun way to provoke a reaction in someone else, and they may want to reciprocate being teased themselves” (Prevnet.ca). Typically, teasing is done to show closeness and affection for the other person and is in a non-threatening manner. Teasing can be confused with bullying. Bullying is defined as “unwanted aggressive behavior; observed or perceived power imbalance; and repetition of behaviors or high likelihood of repetition” (Stopbullying.gov).
Some of the ways we encourage students to work through these situations is to be an upstander instead of a bystander. When a student sees teasing being taken too far or is as perceived bullying behavior, we encourage them to state their boundaries with teasing, build resiliency, and talk to a trusted adult. We are receiving more and more reports of these behaviors happening through social media. Our school’s Technology Team assembled a few helpful resources to manage technology issues.
