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