How can educators respond to aggressive behaviors in students to support their socioemotional growth and development?

One out of every five students reports being bullied (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019) and, as such, it's imperative that this problem be labeled as what it truly is, an epidemic. Every day, students in overwhelming numbers experience increased anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and other destructive behaviors while the child who is acting as the bully is dealing with their own internal emotional turmoil. As such, the educational system is plagued with a never-ending cycle of bullies continuing to bully and being deemed "bad" people, thus not receiving the attention they need in response to the behaviors they exhibit. This blog is committed to helping educators and other worried individuals solve the bullying epidemic through compassion and research-based methods.

References

National Center for Educational Statistics. (2019). Bullying Statistics. https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/stats.asp

Image Source

Martin, C. (2022). Original text. Image created using: canva.com at March 21, 2022.

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My Story: A Victim Turned Advocate

In a world where 1 in 5 children reports being bullied, I can confidently assume that you, as the reader, either know someone who has been affected by bullying, has been the bully, or was the victim of a bullying situation ( National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019) Our country's response to this overwhelming number was to implement zero-tolerance policies as a means of ending bullying. However, because of the lack of intervention programs, the aggression that a bully shows isn't stopped and their behavior isn't corrected. These programs and policies are often successful at short-term remediation of the behaviors but are not based on the "psychobiological model of bullying that provides a framework for understanding the causation and prevention" thus ultimately ignoring "the factors operating throughout the development of the child that contributed to the bullying behavior of that child" (LeBlanc, 2001). Ultimately, this leaves our students wit

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Becoming a Compassionate Educator in the Face of Aggressive Behavior

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