Finish The Scene
This exercise is focused on bystanders and their power to stop bullying. Before engaging on this activity, please discuss the following statistics with the participants and ask the proposed questions. Bystanders are people who witness bullying and cyberbullying in action, who stand by and watch, who videotape it and make it viral but do and say nothing to stop the situation.
85% of bullying happens in front of others
Why do you think this happens?
Have you seen anyone being bullied?
Even though most bystanders don’t like to watch bullying, less than 20% try to stop it.
Why do you think others don’t intervene?
What would you do to change that?
How do you feel about intervening?
Bullying stops in less than 10 seconds, 57% of the time when someone intervenes on behalf of the victim
Why do you think this is?
SCENARIOS
Read the following scenarios and finish each scene from a bystander’s perspective. You can do as many scenarios as you want, as well as creating your own. After each one, discuss in a group the best way for a bystander to stop each bullying situation.
You’re having lunch with your friends in the cafeteria. A boy from your class approaches the table to join you but your friend tells him that there is no room for lame kids at your table. Finish the scene.
Your friend shows up with a weird hairstyle and everyone is making fun of them. Finish the scene. Your class gets the exam results, and your friend got a low score. Someone makes a social media post about how bad a student that kid is. Finish the scene. It’s winter break and Tina hasn’t seen her friends since last week. She logs into social media and sees photos of her friends hanging out. They got together and didn’t invite her. Finish the scene. There is a new girl/boy in your class. They seem nice and interesting, and you would like to get to know them better, but everyone thinks they are weird. Finish the scene.
Kindness Box
Buy or make a box for each family member
Buy or make small blank notes (about 4”X4”).
Every day after dinner (or any other time), each family member writes the date and kind words to everyone else in the family.
You can choose if you would like to share some of the notes you received or if you want to keep them to yourself.
Kids who cannot write can draw.
Later on you can glue the notes to a notebook, scan and make an album, etc.
