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Don't make a bad situation worse

You have just had a target of bullying behaviour report it to you. There are a number of ways that you can address the issue. But what you say to the target can make a huge difference to the way they feel about themselves and the confidence they will have in you dealing with the situation. While there is lots of well meaning advice out there, here is some that should be avoided. Read More...

Five more mistakes to avoid when dealing with behaviours

Here are some more tips on what to avoid when dealing with inappropriate behaviour.

1. Avoid creating the situation into a win/lose proposition. You can use consequences but make sure you are not going to gain something out of it. 'If you do not get this done I will give some of my work to do' is not a good way to provide consequences. You appear like you are abusing your authority and this can create resentment. Read More...

Do not take the behaviour personally

When a person is using inappropriate behaviour it is easy to feel like they are personally attacking us. Sometimes this might be the case but in lots of circumstances Read More...

New bullying behaviour book due out soon

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. This has been due to devoting a lot of attention to the new book which is due out soon. Intervening In Bullying Behaviour: Nine Ways to Take Direct Action is in the final stages of production and should be on sale by the end of September.

ibb front cover image with border 300px tall

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Review - Mobbing: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions

What could be worse than being subjected to bullying behaviour? The answer is in Mobbing: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions. Mobbing happens when a group of people gang up and use bullying behaviour. When the target tries to get help, the organisation supports and sides with the group doing the bullying behaviour. There is a lot more to mobbing than that and it is clearly explained in Duffy & Sperry's book. It contains four parts: Introduction, How mobbing develops, Consequences & recovery and Solutions & prevention. Read More...

How to promote decency in any organisation

It takes more than good intentions to have a pleasant and successful workplace, school or organisation. You need the right structures, policies and procedures to help people get things done and ensure everyone is treated with respect. However you also need to be able to deal with issues effectively. Below is some ways in which you can promote a healthy organisation and minimise some of the risk factors.
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9 risk factors involved in mobbing behaviours

When looking at examples of mobbing behaviours a number of factors occur regularly. Because they happen more often they become known as risk factors. To try and deal with mobbing it is important that we look for the risk factors and attempt to stop them from developing into actual problems. Below lists 9 types of risk factors (from Duffy and Sperry, 2012) for workplaces and school environments: Read More...

Mobbing: A checklist of indicators

In the 5 stages of mobbing post I mentioned that for those within an organisation it can be difficult to identify mobbing. The reason for this is being apart of the organisational culture and systems can blind us to seeing how we act in an objective and unbiased way. Researchers have provided a way of checking to us check to see if it is happening in our organisations. Westthues (2006) provides 16 items to check. Read More...

How does Mobbing happen?

Mobbing occurs when bullying behaviour is carried out and the organisation is also involved. Negative and aggressive acts that do harm are repeated against someone with some degree of organisation help and support. In my research I came across this video about the 5 phases of mobbing. Read More...

More common mistakes to avoid #3

Working with young people can have many challenges. There is lots we can do to help and there is some things we should look to avoid. Here are three more things to avoid. Read More...

Navigating which method to use in dealing with bullying behaviour

The last 9 posts have outlined separate ways of responding to bullying behaviour. Each have strengths and weaknesses and times when they should and should not be used. It is hard to work out which path to go down so to help solve this I have developed the ROBB model. Read More...

Sometimes you need outside help

Sometimes we can get stuck in the mindset of having to always be the expert or having to handle every situation. There are be times with bullying behaviour that the best course of action is to refer it to the authorities. When the behaviours involved are very serious or illegal you need to consider if the appropriate authorities should get involved. Read More...

Another way to deal with group bullying behaviour

There are similarities between using the Method of Shared Concern (MSC) to the Group Support Method (GSM) in my previous post. MSC builds empathy and understanding while using peer influence to take shared responsibility for changing the bullying behaviour. But it does so by working individually with members of the group. Read More...

How to deal with groups using bullying behaviour

It is not uncommon for groups to use bullying behaviour against someone. While there may be an key instigator, the rest of the group or bystanders can support the behaviour. They might join in, laugh or just say nothing. All of these signal that it is okay to use that sort of behaviour. The Group Support Method (GSM)... Read More...

The Collaborative Problem-Solving and Resolution (CPR) Approach

When bullying behaviour occurs it is important to help all the parties involved. The Collaborative Problem-Solving and Resolution (CPR) approach does this by allow the targets voice to be heard and balance restored. This can lead to the bullying behaviour user acknowledging responsibility and accepting change. This is how it works: Read More...

Restorative justice - an empathy building approach

The idea behind Restorative Justice (RJ) is supporting change in behaviour by developing empathy for the target. So for bullying behaviour it's facilitating a meeting between the individuals or group involved and possibly other community members. They all speak about the experience and to explain their feelings. The trained facilitator… Read More...

Mediation is not that helpful in dealing with bullying behaviour

Mediation is about bring parties together to work through the conflict and arrive at a solution. It seems a great solution for bullying behaviour until you realise that bullying behaviour is not about disagreements or conflict. Being excluded from joining in because of the way you look is not conflict. Both sides not are trying to present their own views, it is one side using its power against the other. Read More...

Is punishment over used for bullying behaviour?

Everyone accepts that there needs to be some form of punishment for behaviour that is clearly unacceptable. The idea is to discourage and deter the behaviour by having consequences. The difficulty with bullying behaviour is it has such a large spread of different behaviours that means punishment does not always suit the particular problem. But it seems to remains the go to approach for many. Read More...

Strengthening the target to deal with bullying behaviour

There are lots of information and training out there that suggests helping the target to deal with bullying behaviour. Things like supporting the target emotionally and provide skills to help them to become less vulnerable, deal with issues, deflect bullying behaviour and resolve conflict. A key draw back...
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4 direct responses to bullying behaviour

The direct response to bullying behaviour is about saying something when you see it occur to promote behaviour change. This is the foundation of dealing with inappropriate behaviour. Four types Read More...

9 responses to dealing with bullying behaviour

You might have guessed from recent posts that bullying behaviour is something I have been working on recently. I have been looking at ways you can respond if you see or hear of it occurring. There looks to be nine ways of doing something about it:
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Another good bullying behaviour interventions book

My investigations into bullying behaviour references has found another great book to help you deal with this difficult issue. Ken Rigby provides a great summary of 6 different approaches and is recommended. Read More...

Good ideas in Anti-Bullying handbook

There are a number of books on bullying behaviour and The Anti-Bullying Handbook 2nd edition by Keith Sullivan is a good one. The reason is the 5 chapters (about 60 pages) devoted to different types of interventions. While aimed at those working in school settings there is lots to learn about interventions that could be used in other situations. Like so many other books it covers defining & describing the problem, planning & implementing a policy to address the issue and preventative strategies. Read More...

It's not bullying, but it is bullying behaviour

I have been reading quite a lot at the moment regarding the problem of "bullying". A quick count of my personal library of books is up to 13, plus of course there is also articles, websites and downloads. Some of the way the subject is discussed concerns me because I come from a strength based approach. Using the label "bullying" can be counter productive. Read More...

Don't tolerate zero tolerance

As a policy for how we deal with inappropriate behaviour, zero tolerance wants us to believe that if we clamp down hard enough this fixes the problem. Any problem. But behaviour is a complex area and simplistic solutions do not address this complexity and lead to other issues. Read More...

Dead Person Test checks if what your asking is a replacement behaviour!

You see a behaviour and respond. This should include a description of the behaviour so they know what needs to change. An effective method to modify behaviour is offering them another option of how to behaviour. This little test can help you make sure you are giving them a replacement behaviour option. Read More...

More common mistakes to avoid

Sorry for the gap in between postings, I have been away working. Here are three more common mistakes when working with young people.

Do not tell stories about your own misspent youth. Read More...

Don't allow the smoke to distract you from the fire

Dealing with young people smoking is problematic at the best of times. While not wanting to condone the practice you sometimes need to move through the vale of smoke so that you can work on other important behavioural problems. That means accepting that they are going smoke. Here is some idea's on working with adolescence smokers. Read More...

BECOME six steps in school settings

I was very happy to read a review from one reader who is looking at using idea's in the book in his role as Assistant Principle in a school. While being rated 5 stars put a smile on my face, I was really excited about the prospect of the idea's being put into practice in a school. I wish them all the best and look forward to hearing how things go in due course. Here is the review Read More...

5 common mistakes when dealing with inappropriate behaviour

There are times when someones behaviour needs to have consequences. But there is some common things people do that hinder rather than help that person change their behaviour. Five common mistakes are: Read More...

5 useful phrases to use

There are many ways to say things that can help encourage appropriate behaviour. Here are 5 words or phrases that I use to describe behaviour that helps let the person know they are doing something that needs to change.
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Boundaries will change

As life and society changes over time, so do the boundaries or rules that we expect people to live by. Especially as children grow older it is important to recognise that the boundaries must change to allow for increasing knowledge, maturity and need to become more self reliant. So it becomes important to choose the when and how those changes in boundaries occur. Read More...

Balanced boundaries is better

Boundaries are rules that we expect people to live by. Groups of people have them to help make life run smoother. There is a balance between having not enough and too many boundaries. But the point of balance is not always in the centre. Read More...

Where is the boundary?

Boundaries are rules that we expect people to live by. Groups of people have them to help make life run smoother. So as we go about our daily life’s we encounter all sorts of different groups and so the boundaries change. There will be different expectations based on if we are with family, at school, at work, walking down the street or sitting in a movie theatre. It is import to have stable boundaries that do not move or change too often. Read More...

Help in finding solutions to childhood issues

Kids' Skills - Playful and practical solution-finding with children by Ben Furman is a book I would recommend to any parent or teacher of children. It offers a solution focused approach to helping children develop skills that overcome everyday problems. Read More...

Ignoring can help you get a solution

I was flicking through a book the other day and a strategy that was in it gave me one of those ‘yes, I have done that’ moments. Because I had not included this as a strategy in my book I thought I should share it here. The author Bill Rogers called it tactical ignoring. It refers to concentrating on one behaviour while ignoring others on purpose. Read More...
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