It is really essential that we highlight bullying and that we support children who are being bullied, we need to teach children about how wrong it is. One of the things we have got to do is learn to work with both children, not just the perpetrator or the person that seems to be at fault.

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Today we are going talk about children who engage in name-calling or nastiness. You know what it is like in the line up in class, there is always this nitpicking. There is this needling, antagonizing and low-level conflict that seems to be going on all the time. Usually, it will involve a couple of kids that are engaged in this banter on a regular basis. Sometimes it may take the form as one person as the perpetrator and the other person as the victim. Sometimes they are both as bad as each other, sometimes it is very hard to decipher who is really at fault.

Let’s have a talk about what you can do about children who are engaging in nastiness, name-calling and antagonistic behaviour.

1. Work With Both Children

The first thing that is really important to do is to be prepared to work with both children. We have a tendency in school to give a lot of attention to bullying and helping to educate children about bullying. It is really essential that we highlight bullying and that we support children who are being bullied and we teach children about how wrong it is. One of the things we have got to do is learn to work with both children, not just the perpetrator or the person that seems to be at fault.

Very often these situations that erupt in name-calling, niggling or antagonistic behaviour is because we have done so much education on bullying, children immediately default to this “he is bullying me or she is bullying me”. One of the things we have not done a very good job of, in my opinion, is we have not taught resilience, we have not taught children that bullying is wrong. Sometimes we have just got to learn to talk through our problems and not react. Just because somebody looked at us the wrong way or said something mean in the moment does not necessarily mean that they are being a bully, it means they were being nasty, we address it, but we have to work with both kids.

We have to teach resilience to the child that believes they are being bullied. The child that is maybe behaving inappropriately, we need to work with them and not necessarily default to the assumption that they are being a bully. There may be more to the story so you have got to work with both children.

2. Understanding why 

For the child that is the perpetrator, we have got to teach them empathy, we have got to understand why they are doing it. There may be some reasons that they perceive why they are doing it, they might think that person was doing the wrong thing by them. We have got to take the time to figure that out but also teach them how to empathize with the other person and understand what is going on.

Here is a classic example, I had this girl that used to come to me and complain about a boy in the class that used to always call her names. He told her to get lost and treated her quite harshly and she used to get really upset about it. So one of the strategies I said was “one of the things you can do is not to go near him in the playground, find somewhere else to play”. However, it seemed like every lunchtime she found herself with this boy and she was always in the vicinity of where he was playing. When I talked to him about it, I talked to him about the way he was talking to her and the appropriateness of that. One of the things he said is “she keeps following me around everywhere and I am sick of it. I have told her to stop and to find somewhere else to play but she will not leave me alone, so now I am calling her names and being nasty to her because it will keep her away.”

What was happening was this girl wanted his attention, she did not know how to do it in an appropriate fashion, so she was just becoming annoying. He was expressing his frustration by name-calling etc. So there was a little more to this conversation than just the boy being mean. We needed to deal with the boy but there was a whole bigger conversation around helping the girl.

 3. Teach Appropriate Social Interaction

This is my third point, helping her to understand appropriate social interaction. She needed to understand that some of her behaviour was frustrating him. She needed to understand that not everybody wants you following them around. If somebody does not want you playing their game, well ok that may be something you have to deal with. It may not be nice but you need to accept that you can not just follow people around and annoy them just because you want to be a part of what they are doing.

So we had to work with her about the way that she was interacting with the boy. We also had to teach him some empathy and say “we understand you are frustrated and do not like her following you around but the way you are handling it is not appropriate, You can not call her those names and you can not react in that manner.”

4. Understanding both sides

My fourth point is to take time to understand why there are usually two sides to the story. There is usually a motivation that underpins everything that is going on and you need to take the time to listen to both sides of the story. Do not assume that the name-caller is necessarily the person that is the only one in the wrong. There may be much more to the story so you have always got to ask the questions. Did you do anything to provoke them? Did you do anything to antagonize the situation? 

Ask the name-caller for their version of events. Then once you have heard both sides of the story you can usually construct a better more holistic picture of what is going on. So make sure you deal with both parties involved and try to understand why.

5. Teaching Appropriate responses

Lastly, the fifth thing is teaching appropriate responses. Not all children have been taught how to regulate their frustrations and regulate their emotions in an appropriate way. A classic is the high five which is often taught in primary schools in Australia. If somebody is being unpleasant to you well the first thing you can do is ignore them. The second thing is to move away from them. Thirdly you can ask them to stop it. Then the fourth one is to say “stop it, I don’t like it” in a firm voice. The fifth one is to go and find a teacher or an adult.

A lot of kids, because they have not learnt resilience or appropriate conflict management will always default to number five. They will go and find a teacher and dob on the other child. We need to teach children resilience and problem-solving skills. These kinds of levels of communication need to be taught, modelled and reinforced. So if you have got kids that are niggling at each other you have got to help them resolve the conflict.

Sometimes the conflict may be easy to resolve, sometimes it’s a lot bigger. Once you’ve done that you can actually decipher whether it’s bullying or not. There may be a genuine bullying situation and you have got to deal with but do not use that as the first default response. Take the time to understand, to teach empathy, to teach appropriate responses and conflict management. Take the time to teach resilience and what you will find is over time children become better. They become better at solving their own problems rather than always having to pull you in to solve their problems for you.

I hope that’s been helpful, five ways that you can address name-calling or nastiness in your classroom. Don’t forget to comment and let us know what you thought or if you have specific topics you’d like us to cover. 

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