Conversations About Bullying – Episode 31

In this week’s episode of PACERTalks About Bullying, we talked with middle and high school students about conversations around bullying. It’s not always easy to know what to say in a bullying situation, but the more you think about it, the more prepared you might be.

Transcript

Hey there, welcome back to PACERTalks About Bullying. I'm Bailey, we're glad you're here.

This month we're talking all about students with solutions. In this week's episode, we talked with middle and high school students all about conversations around bullying. Now, we know it's not always easy to know what to say in a bullying situation but the more you think about it, the more [inaudible] you might be. Now let's get into the episode. So my first question is if someone is being bullied, what advice do you have about how to tell an adult and what to say?

I would tell them that you should just go do it, don't look back and don't really think about the other person, just think about how you're feeling and if you're feeling scared, maybe offer to go with them instead.

You could just maybe say "Can I talk to you for a second?" and "Do you think you could help me with this?"

Express it in details, I guess, [inaudible].

It's hard being bullied because while you're being bullied you feel like you can't trust anybody [inaudible] that you're alone. But you really have to go out and tell an adult because someone out there is going to listen to your story and they're going to want to help you.

If you see somebody experiencing bullying, what would you say to them?

That it's going to be fine and everything gets better and maybe help them go find a teacher.

You could tell them to go ask an adult or you could just try to be their friend. You could stand around and ask them if they're okay, how they're doing, or you could go with them to an adult because sometimes people feel really alone and that could really make them feel a lot better having that kind of support.

So if you see someone sitting alone at lunch and want to sit with them, what's something you could say to break the ice?

Go up to them and just be like "Hey, how's your day been?" And if they say "Good" usually you would say "Good" back or strike up conversation by like "Oh, well last class this happened." You could talk about that and eventually you could even learn some things about each other. I've made a couple of friends that way actually.

Mind if I sit there?

Well you could ask them what their hobbies are, you could ask them what their favorite things are to do, how they're doing in school, sports teams, like anything, you could just have any kind of conversation starter just to make them feel that much better and like they have a friend.

You could smile and introduce yourself. Don't be scared to approach and maybe just ask if they don't mind if you sit down.

What is something you can say to a friend who you know was bullying others?

That it's not okay. I understand sometimes, honestly I've seen girls bashing other girls [inaudible] places I've been, I won't name names but I've seen it happen. And if I ever realized someone was being bullied or my friend was bullying someone, I would tell them to knock it off because I've been in their shoes and I understand how detrimental it can be.

The best way to be like, I would personally go up to them and just be like "Really? You're going to put yourself down that low to go after other people? Like you're better than that, you can do better. Focus on yourself, build up yourself."

"Hey man, that's not cool, why would you be doing that? What if that was happening to you, how would you feel?"

I would tell them that that's really not cool and if they kept on going on, I would go to tell an adult because that's not something and that's not a person I would want to be friends with.

That wraps up this week's episode of PACERTalks About Bullying. Thanks so much to all of the awesome students that participated in this video and shared their ideas. We'll see you right back here next week and remember together we can help create a world without bullying. See ya.