Preventing Bullying: Tips for School Counselors

School counselors work each day to help students develop the social skills to not bully, to help when they see bullying, and feel confident in dealing with a bully themselves. Here are tips and resources from your favorite Confident Counselors.

“I like to teach bully prevention to all classes. Instead of focusing on the word bullying too heavily, I like to focus on how we can be nice to one another and how being unfriendly makes others feel.” – Mrs. Bell, The Crafty Counselor

• Friendly & Respectful, or Unfriendly & Disrespectful from Mrs. Bell, The Crafty Counselor
• The Bruised and the Beautiful Apple: A Powerful Lesson in Bullying from Single Dad Laughing

“Kids love learning from other kids. Look for media that explains bullying and conflict resolution in kid-friendly language. My favorite kid-centered video to use in bullying prevention lessons is this.” – Kate from EduKate and Inspire

• Preventing Bullying Lesson Plans from The Ned Show
• Chain of Consequences: Writing to Prevent Bullying from The Owl Teacher
• Bullying Prevention through Songs, Posters, Videos, Dance, and More. Pack with freebies from School Counseling By Heart
• Girls Group Book Club from Counselor Up and the group video

“Armor students with assertiveness skills to defend themselves against a real bully. Create and consistently rehearse a safety plan that includes trusted supports to walk and talk with, safe locations, and how they will briefly respond in a firm, matter of fact manner, before walking away.” – Mental Fills

• My Bully Safety Plan Flip Book from Mental Fills 
• Assertive Phrases for Standing Up to Bullying from Signe Whitson
• 10 Bully-Proofing Strategies to Help Children with Special Needs

“The best kick off for any school year should include a bully prevention and awareness lesson. We start classroom lessons on bullying the first month of school. This helps set the tone for the year. We clearly define bullying and how it differs from normal conflict. The lesson includes an interactive powerpoint and scenarios in which students determine if it is conflict or bullying. The second semester, as students get restless, we do another round of bully education lessons in the classrooms. We have also hired a company called “3 Screens” to show an empowering video to the entire student body in the gym using a movie theater size screen. It’s a powerful show with many tears from students and teachers.” – The Counseling Teacher

• Friendship Quiz Show: Fun Way to Distinguish Between a Friend and a Frenemy from The Counseling Teacher 
• No Bullying Rules Posters from Speckled Moose Counseling

“In Kindergarten we role play and practice, practice, practice with puppets to help us learn the skills of walking away and avoiding the bully!” – Counseling Wisdom/Susan Wisdom

• Victory for Vic and Vicki: Activities to Learn to Handle Bullying from Counseling Wisdom
• Stand Up to a Bully, Video from Sesame Street

“All counseling groups should have an underlying theme of anti-bullying, with at least one session specifically devoted to anti-bullying strategies. For example, in my Goals Make the Man group, we have a session on masculine stereotypes and how bullies use these stereotypes to instigate fights and conflict.” – Stephanie from Bilingual Learner

• Girl World: Group Counseling Sessions Guide with Activities from Bilingual Learner
• 10 Scenarios to Get Kids Talking about Bullying from Free Spirit Publishing
• The Bully, The Bullied and Beyond

“For verbal insults I teach kids that when someone says something mean it doesn’t have to hurt your feelings. You can choose to only listen to the kind things from the people who care about you.” – Little Miss Counselor

• Peer Pressure and Hurtful Language from Kid Pointz 

“One of my schools used sociograms as part of how we identify students who may be in additional need of support and/or vulnerable to bullying. Sociograms helps identify social groups, isolated students, and dynamics within a classroom. 6 Seconds has a great article about how it can be used.” – Laura, Social Emotional Workshop

• Bystander Revolution

Print and Go Resources

• Bullying Education and Prevention Workbook for Elementary School Counseling from Counselor Keri 
• No Bullying Rules Posters from Speckled Moose Counseling 
• Bullying Prevention: Quiz, Quiz, Trade Cards from Mrs. Bell, The Crafty Counselor 
• Take a Stand Against Bullying: How to be a Buddy, Not a Bully from Mrs. Bell, The Crafty Counselor 
• We Vote No to Bullying! (Board Game) from School Counseling is Magical
• Bullying Prevention Bully Proof Shield Activity from Kiddie Matters 
• I am a Bucket Filler Activities from Kiddie Matters 
• Bully Proof Bingo from Carol Miller, The Middle School Counselor 
• No Bullying Bingo from Speckled Moose Counseling 

• Free Bullying Prevention Bookmarks from CounselorChelsey