Good Morning! Here is the Monday Morning Blog!
Hello. This is Sharon from Mentoring a Dream. I will be taking care of the blog posts for Teen Challenge (on the 2nd Monday of the month) and Teen Resource (on the 4th Monday of the month).
A little bit about me, I grew up and still live in Minnesota with the man in my life, Jim, and my two step sons. Much of the knowledge I have gained about teens is from my own personal experience watching my step sons (now 22 and 21), work through the challenges of growing up. But some of my experience has been taking the time to be engaged with the challenges many of the adults in the lives of teens have been facing. Adults like
Parents
Teachers
Counselors
Coaches
Mentors
Through this blog opportunity, I am planning to share information about challenges teens are currently facing. Some of these issues may be new to you and some you may be very familiar with. I want to provide some ideas on what we as adults can do to help our teens work through these challenges to help them succeed. Ultimately, I hope this information will help you to engage with your teen and understand what they are facing.
Teen Challenge – Preventing School Bus Bullying
With back to school underway, the safety of our teens at school is always in the front of our minds. How about when they ride the bus to school?
My reflections on this topic
When I am researching teen challenge topics to write about, it always brings me back to my own school experiences. When I was presented with this article by Amanda at Study Haven, it brought me back to waiting at the bus stop in elementary school. I was bullied by an older kid there. The other kids who were at the bus stop with us, didn’t really know what to do and didn’t intervene because they were afraid of this older kid too. He didn’t physically hurt me, but teased me about being short, which still isn’t right. I think he just got tired of doing it because it eventually stopped, but the feelings of hurt are still a memory for me.
Teens who ride the bus to school
Does your teen ride the bus to school? I was a bus rider throughout my grade school, junior high and high school careers. I was even a bus patrol officer in junior high school. Besides getting your teen to school, it can also be a place where your teen could be harassed or even bullied.
What can we do to prevent bullying on the bus?
Did you know riding the bus is a common place for teens to get bullied? It is because there is not a lot of adult supervision and your teen becomes a captive audience until they arrive at school. The driver does their best to help stop the behavior, but they are busy driving the bus. According to the article, School Bus Bullying Prevention, on transfinder.com there are ways for all of us to prevent school bus bullying. Here is a list of ideas below.
What can parents do?
Learn to recognize the signs of someone who is being bullied. For those who are being bullied, they can be afraid of retribution and will try and hide the signs that they are being bullied. Check in with them on how things are going and listen to their answers.
What can kids do?
Talk to the adults in their lives about what is happening. Adults can reassure them it is not their fault they are a target of a bully. But, if they are being bullied, be sure to report it and suggest that they sit close to the driver or take the bus with a friend to help.
What can the drivers do?
Actual intervention maybe hard for them to do, since they are driving the bus. Encourage drivers to report any instances of bullying that happen on their bus. According to the article, 40% of bus drivers indicated that bullying was reported to them by a rider. Bus riders may feel that their driver is an approachable adult and could help them make the bullying stop.
What can schools do?
Schools have bullying prevention policies that must be used. When the policies aren’t stopping the bullying, it may be time for the school to reestablish their culture and promote one of bullying prevention. And their staff, including bus drivers and cafeteria workers, need to be trained on appropriate intervention techniques.
As a last resort, and additional adult may need to be added to ride the bus. It will give the driver another set of eyes and someone to intervene. This may take away the incentive for bullies to select and pick on targets.
Thank you to
Thank you to Amanda at Study Haven for bringing this topic and article to my attention. Study Haven, part of LearningHaven.com, is a homeschooling based online learning and homework help platform located in Arizona. As a class project, they were working on the topic of bullying prevention and came across this article. They also saw Selma’s Resources page and reached out to us to see if we would feature it.
Resources for you and your teen
Have you seen the resource page on Selma’s website? Here is a link to it, Teen Resources
Be sure to look for the next guest blog post on September 26th when we talk about the connection between eye health and mental health.
If you have any topics about teen challenges or issues the adults in teen lives should be aware of, please let me know in the comments and I will definitely take a look at featuring them in a future blog post.
Shawn’s Way discusses the topic of bullying
Are you looking for a great read about a high school freshman being the target of a bully? Shawn’s Way, the second book in The Way Series, a set of coming of age novels for teens and young adults with a relatable story, is a great read for your teen or young adult. It could also be a great conversation starter to talk about this important topic with your teen.
Be sure to check out Selma’s book tab for more information and to purchase your copy.
