March 11, 2025 • 21 mins
"It's just middle school drama."
"Ignore them, and it'll stop."
"You're gonna have to toughen up."
Sound familiar? These are the kinds of dismissive responses students often hear when they report bullying or relational aggression—and they’re not helping. In fact, with 1 in 5 students reporting being bullied and 41% of those fearing it will happen again, we’ve got serious work to do.
In this episode, we’re diving deep into relational aggression and cyberbullying, breaking down what makes these behaviors so damaging, why they often go unnoticed, and—most importantly—how school counselors can step in effectively.
You’ll learn:
✅ The subtle ways relational aggression shows up in schools (and how to spot it)
✅ How cyberbullying is evolving and why it’s getting harder to combat
✅ Practical, real-world strategies for supporting students and stopping these behaviors before they escalate
Plus, I’m giving you a sneak peek at my upcoming Behavior Breakthrough Kit—a game-changing resource packed with evidence-based strategies, a behavior intervention flowchart, and more tools to help you handle tough behavior challenges with confidence. [Go here to join the waitlist]
If handling concerns around relational aggression, cyberbullying, and behavior intervention are keeping you up at night, this episode is for you.
00:00 Introduction
00:26 The Reality of Bullying Statistics
01:37 Understanding Relational Aggression
04:14 The Rise of Cyberbullying
05:43 Emotional and Academic Impact
06:58 Intervention Strategies
07:58 Creating Safe Reporting Spaces
09:32 Collaborating with Teachers
10:33 Supporting Targeted Students
15:33 Behavior Breakthrough Kit
19:51 Conclusion
**********************************
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's just middle school drama.
Ignore them and they'll stop.
Just go make some new friends.
You don't need friends likethat.
Maybe we should just toughen up.
You're overreacting.
This happens to everyone.
Ooh, those are things we shouldnever, ever say when students
(00:23):
are experiencing interpersonalconflicts, because the truth is
that one out of every fivestudents has reported being
bullied, and 41% of thosestudents who reported that they
were being bullied indicatedthey thought the bullying would
happen again.
They thought the bullying wouldhappen again and even worse.
(00:50):
When the US Department ofEducation conducted a national
survey in 2022, they found that100% of students reported
experiencing, witnessing orbeing aware of bullying during
that single school year.
And in all of this, only 44% ofstudents reported notifying a
(01:14):
trusted adult.
Y'all, we have got some work todo in the world of relational
aggression and bullying.
In the world of relationalaggression and bullying and I
will bet this time of yearespecially you are experiencing
(01:37):
these very concerns on yourcampus.
In today's educational world,relational aggression in schools
is a huge concern and, unlikephysical bullying, relational
aggression is subtle.
It has behaviors aimed atdamaging a student's social
relationships or theirreputation, and when we add that
(01:57):
to the rise of cyberbullyingamong students.
We realize we have some veryunique challenges in our work,
because we have to address thesebehaviors while still
supporting students' emotionalwell-being.
That's what we're talking aboutin this week's episode of the
(02:18):
School for School Counselorspodcast.
Hey there, I'm Steph Johnson.
I'm a full-time schoolcounselor, just like you, on a
mission to make schoolcounseling more sustainable and
more enjoyable.
I've been working in publicschool buildings for almost 30
years now and I can tell youthere has not been one single
(02:40):
year when I haven't heard aboutmultiple instances of bullying.
It's been going on for a longtime, but it feels like it is
becoming more and more of anurgent concern with students'
access to devices, not only theones they're bringing from home,
but the devices that schoolsare now providing for them.
(03:07):
Relational aggression is tricky.
When students try to harm oneanother's social standing or
damage relationships.
It can be devastating.
It might look like socialexclusion, where an aggressor
deliberately engineers a studentout of group activities.
It might look like spreadingrumors to tarnish a student's
(03:31):
reputation, and that's even moreinsidious, again with these
devices that students now haveaccess to.
It could even look like thesilent treatment where one or
more students ignores another tomake them feel like they are
completely on their own.
This stuff can add up to somehuge emotional distress and, if
(03:56):
it's not caught and dealt with,can also impact a student's
academic performance and theirmental health right.
A student's academicperformance and their mental
health right, because who wantsto go into a building where you
feel like you're being made theenemy each and every day?
As I said, cyberbullying isrising.
(04:17):
My goodness, I think if I hadit my way, we would have a
moratorium on these cell phonesin the schools, but then again
y'all.
I don't know about you, but alot of the online cyberbullying
situations that I'm seeing andhearing about are carryovers
from things that are happeningat home, out in the community,
(04:39):
things that are not happening atschool, but the fallout carries
over into the school buildingand so we're trying to put out
fires that we had nothing to dowith in the first place, and
that is really frustrating.
Typically in cyberbullyingyou're going to see things like
harassing messages, right,threatening or mean text
(04:59):
messages or emails orcommunication that's just ugly.
Or emails or communicationthat's just ugly.
Public shaming, where studentspost embarrassing content about
somebody else online.
Sometimes they create fakeprofiles to post this
information.
It's so concerning, and becausethe internet provides anonymity
(05:23):
, that just emboldens thebullies right, they feel like
they can get away with anythingbecause they're never going to
get caught and let's be real,often they're not.
And even if they are, it takesquite a bit of work to dig down
to where it's coming from whenstudents experience relational
(05:45):
aggression and cyberbullying.
I mentioned emotional distress,right.
Feeling anxious about going toschool, I certainly would
Feeling some having feelings ofdepression or compromised
self-esteem, academic decline,not only poor academic
performance, but just decreasedparticipation in anything.
(06:07):
Who wants to raise their handor put themselves out there when
they know that the enemy islurking just around the corner.
And that leads to socialwithdrawal, avoiding social
interactions altogether, notparticipating in extracurricular
activities, and so it iscrucial that we are able to
(06:29):
recognize these things so thatwe can appropriately intervene.
We can provide the bridgebetween the students and the
staff and the families to makesure that our relational
aggression interventions arestrategic, that they're
developmentally appropriate forstudents and that they're based
(06:53):
on everyone's social emotionalneeds.
One thing that we can do ishelp teach students about
conflict resolution.
This could be small groups orit could be classroom lessons
about recognizing manipulativebehaviors.
We can teach students thedifference between setting
(07:16):
boundaries and excluding someone.
That's a big one.
Or we can help students engagein role-playing exercises where
they can practice communicatingassertively and resolving
conflicts effectively.
I love the book series WeirdTough Dare.
(07:37):
I think it is a really coolglimpse into all of the
different viewpoints ofrelational aggression, and I
believe those books are stillavailable on Amazon.
I find myself using those quitea bit, and that's saying
something, because I don't do alot of bibliotherapy, so you
need to pick those up if youdon't have them already.
We can also provide a safespace for reporting these kinds
(08:03):
of relational aggression spacefor reporting these kinds of
relational aggression.
Lots of kids are afraid toreport this stuff because they
do not want to become the nexttarget or they do not want to
make their own situation worse.
We can help by creating someconfidential reporting systems.
Maybe we have an anonymous form, maybe we have check-ins for
(08:28):
students that we're worriedabout.
Maybe we have a locked Dropboxsomewhere on campus.
It doesn't matter what thesystem is, as long as it's
confidential and it's easilyaccessible.
Students don't have to go outof their way or be seen
utilizing it.
I've tried these in my schoolcounseling programs with great
success, and the cool thingabout them was they often
(08:51):
alerted me to issues that werebrewing before I could see them,
and so it allowed us to get ajump on it before things got out
of control.
Out of control, we can alsoprovide some judgment-free
spaces to let kids process theseexperiences, to help them in
(09:13):
developing their own copingstrategies so that they're able
to handle things as we'reworking this situation out, and
so these safe spaces that we areuniquely equipped to provide
are going to be like gold.
We can also collaborate withteachers to see if we can
(09:35):
identify some of these patterns.
We are typically not with thestudents all day, we don't see
all the things going on, butthese teachers a lot of them are
really good on picking up onsome of these patterns.
They can be subtle.
So we need to make sure that wetrain staff on the warning
(09:56):
signs of relational aggression.
If we see a student suddenlywithdraw socially or their
friend groups start changingerratically, that might be a
warning sign.
If teachers alert us, we canstart tracking behaviors.
We can start establishingrelationships so that we can
(10:17):
identify when an interventionmight need to be deployed before
everything reaches a boilingpoint, deployed before
everything reaches a boilingpoint and that proactive piece I
think is so important insituations of relational
aggression and then justsupporting students who have
been targeted.
(10:38):
We can help the victims rebuildtheir confidence, rebuild their
social connections.
Rebuild their confidence,rebuild their social connections
.
We might need to help themrediscover what makes them
amazing Working on self-concept,what makes you you, what makes
you awesome, and re-establishingsome of the social connections
(11:00):
they might have lost along theway.
Sponsored lunch opportunities,small counseling groups I use
that term loosely where we'rejust coming together for
camaraderie.
Those approaches are reallydiscounted by a lot of people on
our campuses.
That's where we get a lot ofthe comments like oh, you just
(11:20):
play games with students in youroffice all day.
That's probably what it lookslike to a lot of people.
But we know the mechanisms ofwhat we're doing, we know why
we're choosing these things andso it's going to be okay.
It made me laugh.
The other day.
I saw a post in a principal'sFacebook group and one principal
(11:40):
was acting like they had justdiscovered gold.
Facebook group and oneprincipal was acting like they
had just discovered gold.
They said you know what I did?
I pulled one of mytroublemakers into my office and
I invited them to challenge mein a game of Uno and y'all.
That was one of the bestexperiences.
It allowed me to talk with thiskid when they weren't in
(12:01):
trouble.
It allowed me to establish arelationship with them.
It was just the best thing ever.
Everyone needs to invest $10 toput a deck of Uno cards in
their principal's office andy'all.
I laughed out loud and it tookeverything in me to not comment
on that post and say please tellme, how do you see your school
(12:25):
counselor on your campus?
Would you give them a hard timeif you saw them playing a game
of Uno with students?
Because a lot of administratorsdon't understand what we're
doing.
Now it's up to us to educatethem.
We have to build the confidenceand the clout on our campus to
(12:45):
be able to have thoseconversations.
But it can be done.
It just made me laugh.
They just acted like they haddiscovered some sort of secret
trick that no one knew about.
We can also encourage studentsto join some structured
activities, someextracurriculars, clubs or teams
where they can find some newerand more supportive friendships.
(13:08):
And, of course, we can offerthat one-on-one counseling right
for students who are recoveringfrom relational aggression.
But I think it's important thatwe keep our eyes open.
Eyes open when 16% of highschool students report being
bullied electronically in thepast year, we know we have a
(13:39):
problem.
Yet, on the bright side,school-based bullying prevention
programs have been shown todecrease relational aggression
by almost 25%.
This is huge.
This is where we need to beamong all the many, many other
places we need to be on ourcampus.
We definitely need to have aneye toward relational aggression
on our campuses.
(14:00):
We can't ignore it and pretendlike it's not happening, because
if we do that, it's going toexplode right in front of our
faces.
We need to understand howrelational aggression happens,
both in person and online.
We need to understand theeffects of that behavior and we
(14:23):
need to know how we can helpThrough teaching, conflict
resolution, creating safereporting processes,
collaborating with teachers andsupporting students who have
been targeted.
If we can deploy thesemulti-layered approaches, we are
going to be able to change ourschool cultures, and that y'all
(14:48):
is super exciting when you thinkabout it.
It just gets me jazzed to thinkabout how we are positioned to
make such a huge difference onour campus.
This is a short episode thisweek, but I just kind of wanted
to get you thinking towardrelational aggression and
(15:09):
cyberbullying.
I think so often it's just kindof dismissed by people on our
campuses oh it's just kids beingkids.
Oh she's just a mean girl.
Oh you just.
You need to get over it.
Go go play with someone else.
Those things don't work and wehave to be ready to speak to
that effect and to effectivelyadvocate for our students.
(15:33):
I mentioned last week I'mconsidering offering something
called the Behavior BreakthroughKit.
Let me tell you a little bitmore about what I'm considering
putting in this behaviorbreakthrough kit, because I want
you to be prepared and to feelconfident and competent with
(15:53):
behavior intervention likerelational aggression, cyber
bullying in the moment,de-escalation, whatever your
behavior situations may be.
Here's what I'm thinking ofincluding in this behavior
breakthrough kit.
I would include my master classthat I provided to my School
for School Counselors,mastermind members, y'all.
(16:16):
These master classes are deepdives.
They're not your typicalrun-of-the-mill workshops where
I just kind of show up and tellyou things that you could have
googled for yourself.
That's not how our masterclasses work.
These are deep dive,perspective changing sessions
that I guarantee are going toleave you looking at behavior
(16:39):
intervention differently.
So that's one.
Secondly, I'm thinking aboutoffering my behavior
intervention playbook.
So this playbook is speciallydesigned to eliminate the need
for print and pray materialsthat might work but probably
won't.
Instead, I want to give you theevidence-based approaches that
(17:01):
you need to be able to workthrough behavior concerns in
real time.
You need to be able to workthrough behavior concerns in
real time, and the cool thingabout this is it can be repeated
.
You don't need a resource everytime something else pops up,
and the more you work with itand practice with it, the more
fluency you build, so that whenyour administrator says, hey, we
(17:27):
have this issue with this kid,what do you think You're going
to be able to pop off ideas atthe drop of a hat, and that
makes you look like a badass.
So we have the behaviormasterclass, we have the
behavior intervention playbook,and then I'm going to include a
collection of my most popularbehavior-oriented podcasts.
(17:48):
But not only that.
Not only are you going to getto listen to those podcasts,
you're going to get a writtensummary of each episode In case
you don't have time to sit downand listen to them right away.
You can read through the mostpertinent points quickly and
easily.
But you know what?
(18:08):
Let's not stop there, because Istill think you need even more
support, and sometimes sittingdown and learning a bunch of
stuff takes a back burner to theday-to-day, moment-to-moment
activities that you'reconstantly engaged in.
Right, our time is precious.
(18:37):
So what if I show you my brandnew behavior intervention flow
chart, so that, when you'represented with a concern, you
don't have to guess what comesnext.
You can consult this flow chartand know exactly which
direction to look in next?
And then, to make it evenbetter, what if I provided a
decision-making tree fordetermining whether or not a
(19:00):
student is truly a student thatfalls victim to dysregulation,
or whether it's defiance?
Now, be honest, you've probablyhad a couple of situations, if
not more, where you wondered isthis student truly dysregulated
or are they playing me becausethey don't want to have to do
(19:20):
what they're supposed to do?
I bet you've had some like that, and so have I, and so I
developed a decision tree fordetermining what the best
approach is going to be.
Y'all that is a lot of stuff,isn't it?
A masterclass, a step-by-stepplaybook, a podcast collection
(19:43):
with summaries, a next stepsflow chart and a decision-making
tree, if you think this mightbe something that could help you
in your work as a schoolcounselor.
I'm still feeling it out alittle bit.
I want to make sure that thisis something that school
counselors can actually use.
So if it sounds like somethingyou need, I want you to join the
(20:08):
waitlist.
You can either click on thelink that I'm going to provide
in the show notes of thisepisode, or you can go to our
website,schoolforschoolcounselorscom,
and if the waitlist is still up,it's going to be right at the
top of the homepage.
Just click the link, enter youremail and then you're going to
be the first to know when thisbehavior breakthrough kit
(20:31):
becomes available.
I am all about you.
I am all about your success.
I'm holding nothing back,because I truly believe that
school counselors do some of themost important work on the
planet, and I want you to feellike you have what you need.
Beyond the silly printables,beyond the perfect world advice
(20:53):
that everybody seems to be soready to give you, I want to
talk about what's reallyhappening in the trenches.
So again, if you think thisbehavior breakthrough kit could
be useful to you, head on overto schoolforschoolcounselorscom
and hit the link at the top ofthe page.
I love school counseling, butthe one thing that I love more
(21:14):
than that is supporting goodschool counselors, and I'm in
your corner.
I'll be back soon with anotherepisode of the School for School
Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, my friend, Ihope you have the best week.
Take care.
It's just middle school drama.
Ignore them and they'll stop.
Just go make some new friends.
You don't need friends likethat.
Maybe we should just toughen up.
You're overreacting.
This happens to everyone.
Ooh, those are things we shouldnever, ever say when students
(00:23):
are experiencing interpersonalconflicts, because the truth is
that one out of every fivestudents has reported being
bullied, and 41% of thosestudents who reported that they
were being bullied indicatedthey thought the bullying would
happen again.
They thought the bullying wouldhappen again and even worse.
(00:50):
When the US Department ofEducation conducted a national
survey in 2022, they found that100% of students reported
experiencing, witnessing orbeing aware of bullying during
that single school year.
And in all of this, only 44% ofstudents reported notifying a
(01:14):
trusted adult.
Y'all, we have got some work todo in the world of relational
aggression and bullying.
In the world of relationalaggression and bullying and I
will bet this time of yearespecially you are experiencing
(01:37):
these very concerns on yourcampus.
In today's educational world,relational aggression in schools
is a huge concern and, unlikephysical bullying, relational
aggression is subtle.
It has behaviors aimed atdamaging a student's social
relationships or theirreputation, and when we add that
(01:57):
to the rise of cyberbullyingamong students.
We realize we have some veryunique challenges in our work,
because we have to address thesebehaviors while still
supporting students' emotionalwell-being.
That's what we're talking aboutin this week's episode of the
(02:18):
School for School Counselorspodcast.
Hey there, I'm Steph Johnson.
I'm a full-time schoolcounselor, just like you, on a
mission to make schoolcounseling more sustainable and
more enjoyable.
I've been working in publicschool buildings for almost 30
years now and I can tell youthere has not been one single
(02:40):
year when I haven't heard aboutmultiple instances of bullying.
It's been going on for a longtime, but it feels like it is
becoming more and more of anurgent concern with students'
access to devices, not only theones they're bringing from home,
but the devices that schoolsare now providing for them.
(03:07):
Relational aggression is tricky.
When students try to harm oneanother's social standing or
damage relationships.
It can be devastating.
It might look like socialexclusion, where an aggressor
deliberately engineers a studentout of group activities.
It might look like spreadingrumors to tarnish a student's
(03:31):
reputation, and that's even moreinsidious, again with these
devices that students now haveaccess to.
It could even look like thesilent treatment where one or
more students ignores another tomake them feel like they are
completely on their own.
This stuff can add up to somehuge emotional distress and, if
(03:56):
it's not caught and dealt with,can also impact a student's
academic performance and theirmental health right.
A student's academicperformance and their mental
health right, because who wantsto go into a building where you
feel like you're being made theenemy each and every day?
As I said, cyberbullying isrising.
(04:17):
My goodness, I think if I hadit my way, we would have a
moratorium on these cell phonesin the schools, but then again
y'all.
I don't know about you, but alot of the online cyberbullying
situations that I'm seeing andhearing about are carryovers
from things that are happeningat home, out in the community,
(04:39):
things that are not happening atschool, but the fallout carries
over into the school buildingand so we're trying to put out
fires that we had nothing to dowith in the first place, and
that is really frustrating.
Typically in cyberbullyingyou're going to see things like
harassing messages, right,threatening or mean text
(04:59):
messages or emails orcommunication that's just ugly.
Or emails or communicationthat's just ugly.
Public shaming, where studentspost embarrassing content about
somebody else online.
Sometimes they create fakeprofiles to post this
information.
It's so concerning, and becausethe internet provides anonymity
(05:23):
, that just emboldens thebullies right, they feel like
they can get away with anythingbecause they're never going to
get caught and let's be real,often they're not.
And even if they are, it takesquite a bit of work to dig down
to where it's coming from whenstudents experience relational
(05:45):
aggression and cyberbullying.
I mentioned emotional distress,right.
Feeling anxious about going toschool, I certainly would
Feeling some having feelings ofdepression or compromised
self-esteem, academic decline,not only poor academic
performance, but just decreasedparticipation in anything.
(06:07):
Who wants to raise their handor put themselves out there when
they know that the enemy islurking just around the corner.
And that leads to socialwithdrawal, avoiding social
interactions altogether, notparticipating in extracurricular
activities, and so it iscrucial that we are able to
(06:29):
recognize these things so thatwe can appropriately intervene.
We can provide the bridgebetween the students and the
staff and the families to makesure that our relational
aggression interventions arestrategic, that they're
developmentally appropriate forstudents and that they're based
(06:53):
on everyone's social emotionalneeds.
One thing that we can do ishelp teach students about
conflict resolution.
This could be small groups orit could be classroom lessons
about recognizing manipulativebehaviors.
We can teach students thedifference between setting
(07:16):
boundaries and excluding someone.
That's a big one.
Or we can help students engagein role-playing exercises where
they can practice communicatingassertively and resolving
conflicts effectively.
I love the book series WeirdTough Dare.
(07:37):
I think it is a really coolglimpse into all of the
different viewpoints ofrelational aggression, and I
believe those books are stillavailable on Amazon.
I find myself using those quitea bit, and that's saying
something, because I don't do alot of bibliotherapy, so you
need to pick those up if youdon't have them already.
We can also provide a safespace for reporting these kinds
(08:03):
of relational aggression spacefor reporting these kinds of
relational aggression.
Lots of kids are afraid toreport this stuff because they
do not want to become the nexttarget or they do not want to
make their own situation worse.
We can help by creating someconfidential reporting systems.
Maybe we have an anonymous form, maybe we have check-ins for
(08:28):
students that we're worriedabout.
Maybe we have a locked Dropboxsomewhere on campus.
It doesn't matter what thesystem is, as long as it's
confidential and it's easilyaccessible.
Students don't have to go outof their way or be seen
utilizing it.
I've tried these in my schoolcounseling programs with great
success, and the cool thingabout them was they often
(08:51):
alerted me to issues that werebrewing before I could see them,
and so it allowed us to get ajump on it before things got out
of control.
Out of control, we can alsoprovide some judgment-free
spaces to let kids process theseexperiences, to help them in
(09:13):
developing their own copingstrategies so that they're able
to handle things as we'reworking this situation out, and
so these safe spaces that we areuniquely equipped to provide
are going to be like gold.
We can also collaborate withteachers to see if we can
(09:35):
identify some of these patterns.
We are typically not with thestudents all day, we don't see
all the things going on, butthese teachers a lot of them are
really good on picking up onsome of these patterns.
They can be subtle.
So we need to make sure that wetrain staff on the warning
(09:56):
signs of relational aggression.
If we see a student suddenlywithdraw socially or their
friend groups start changingerratically, that might be a
warning sign.
If teachers alert us, we canstart tracking behaviors.
We can start establishingrelationships so that we can
(10:17):
identify when an interventionmight need to be deployed before
everything reaches a boilingpoint, deployed before
everything reaches a boilingpoint and that proactive piece I
think is so important insituations of relational
aggression and then justsupporting students who have
been targeted.
(10:38):
We can help the victims rebuildtheir confidence, rebuild their
social connections.
Rebuild their confidence,rebuild their social connections
.
We might need to help themrediscover what makes them
amazing Working on self-concept,what makes you you, what makes
you awesome, and re-establishingsome of the social connections
(11:00):
they might have lost along theway.
Sponsored lunch opportunities,small counseling groups I use
that term loosely where we'rejust coming together for
camaraderie.
Those approaches are reallydiscounted by a lot of people on
our campuses.
That's where we get a lot ofthe comments like oh, you just
(11:20):
play games with students in youroffice all day.
That's probably what it lookslike to a lot of people.
But we know the mechanisms ofwhat we're doing, we know why
we're choosing these things andso it's going to be okay.
It made me laugh.
The other day.
I saw a post in a principal'sFacebook group and one principal
(11:40):
was acting like they had justdiscovered gold.
Facebook group and oneprincipal was acting like they
had just discovered gold.
They said you know what I did?
I pulled one of mytroublemakers into my office and
I invited them to challenge mein a game of Uno and y'all.
That was one of the bestexperiences.
It allowed me to talk with thiskid when they weren't in
(12:01):
trouble.
It allowed me to establish arelationship with them.
It was just the best thing ever.
Everyone needs to invest $10 toput a deck of Uno cards in
their principal's office andy'all.
I laughed out loud and it tookeverything in me to not comment
on that post and say please tellme, how do you see your school
(12:25):
counselor on your campus?
Would you give them a hard timeif you saw them playing a game
of Uno with students?
Because a lot of administratorsdon't understand what we're
doing.
Now it's up to us to educatethem.
We have to build the confidenceand the clout on our campus to
(12:45):
be able to have thoseconversations.
But it can be done.
It just made me laugh.
They just acted like they haddiscovered some sort of secret
trick that no one knew about.
We can also encourage studentsto join some structured
activities, someextracurriculars, clubs or teams
where they can find some newerand more supportive friendships.
(13:08):
And, of course, we can offerthat one-on-one counseling right
for students who are recoveringfrom relational aggression.
But I think it's important thatwe keep our eyes open.
Eyes open when 16% of highschool students report being
bullied electronically in thepast year, we know we have a
(13:39):
problem.
Yet, on the bright side,school-based bullying prevention
programs have been shown todecrease relational aggression
by almost 25%.
This is huge.
This is where we need to beamong all the many, many other
places we need to be on ourcampus.
We definitely need to have aneye toward relational aggression
on our campuses.
(14:00):
We can't ignore it and pretendlike it's not happening, because
if we do that, it's going toexplode right in front of our
faces.
We need to understand howrelational aggression happens,
both in person and online.
We need to understand theeffects of that behavior and we
(14:23):
need to know how we can helpThrough teaching, conflict
resolution, creating safereporting processes,
collaborating with teachers andsupporting students who have
been targeted.
If we can deploy thesemulti-layered approaches, we are
going to be able to change ourschool cultures, and that y'all
(14:48):
is super exciting when you thinkabout it.
It just gets me jazzed to thinkabout how we are positioned to
make such a huge difference onour campus.
This is a short episode thisweek, but I just kind of wanted
to get you thinking towardrelational aggression and
(15:09):
cyberbullying.
I think so often it's just kindof dismissed by people on our
campuses oh it's just kids beingkids.
Oh she's just a mean girl.
Oh you just.
You need to get over it.
Go go play with someone else.
Those things don't work and wehave to be ready to speak to
that effect and to effectivelyadvocate for our students.
(15:33):
I mentioned last week I'mconsidering offering something
called the Behavior BreakthroughKit.
Let me tell you a little bitmore about what I'm considering
putting in this behaviorbreakthrough kit, because I want
you to be prepared and to feelconfident and competent with
(15:53):
behavior intervention likerelational aggression, cyber
bullying in the moment,de-escalation, whatever your
behavior situations may be.
Here's what I'm thinking ofincluding in this behavior
breakthrough kit.
I would include my master classthat I provided to my School
for School Counselors,mastermind members, y'all.
(16:16):
These master classes are deepdives.
They're not your typicalrun-of-the-mill workshops where
I just kind of show up and tellyou things that you could have
googled for yourself.
That's not how our masterclasses work.
These are deep dive,perspective changing sessions
that I guarantee are going toleave you looking at behavior
(16:39):
intervention differently.
So that's one.
Secondly, I'm thinking aboutoffering my behavior
intervention playbook.
So this playbook is speciallydesigned to eliminate the need
for print and pray materialsthat might work but probably
won't.
Instead, I want to give you theevidence-based approaches that
(17:01):
you need to be able to workthrough behavior concerns in
real time.
You need to be able to workthrough behavior concerns in
real time, and the cool thingabout this is it can be repeated
.
You don't need a resource everytime something else pops up,
and the more you work with itand practice with it, the more
fluency you build, so that whenyour administrator says, hey, we
(17:27):
have this issue with this kid,what do you think You're going
to be able to pop off ideas atthe drop of a hat, and that
makes you look like a badass.
So we have the behaviormasterclass, we have the
behavior intervention playbook,and then I'm going to include a
collection of my most popularbehavior-oriented podcasts.
(17:48):
But not only that.
Not only are you going to getto listen to those podcasts,
you're going to get a writtensummary of each episode In case
you don't have time to sit downand listen to them right away.
You can read through the mostpertinent points quickly and
easily.
But you know what?
(18:08):
Let's not stop there, because Istill think you need even more
support, and sometimes sittingdown and learning a bunch of
stuff takes a back burner to theday-to-day, moment-to-moment
activities that you'reconstantly engaged in.
Right, our time is precious.
(18:37):
So what if I show you my brandnew behavior intervention flow
chart, so that, when you'represented with a concern, you
don't have to guess what comesnext.
You can consult this flow chartand know exactly which
direction to look in next?
And then, to make it evenbetter, what if I provided a
decision-making tree fordetermining whether or not a
(19:00):
student is truly a student thatfalls victim to dysregulation,
or whether it's defiance?
Now, be honest, you've probablyhad a couple of situations, if
not more, where you wondered isthis student truly dysregulated
or are they playing me becausethey don't want to have to do
(19:20):
what they're supposed to do?
I bet you've had some like that, and so have I, and so I
developed a decision tree fordetermining what the best
approach is going to be.
Y'all that is a lot of stuff,isn't it?
A masterclass, a step-by-stepplaybook, a podcast collection
(19:43):
with summaries, a next stepsflow chart and a decision-making
tree, if you think this mightbe something that could help you
in your work as a schoolcounselor.
I'm still feeling it out alittle bit.
I want to make sure that thisis something that school
counselors can actually use.
So if it sounds like somethingyou need, I want you to join the
(20:08):
waitlist.
You can either click on thelink that I'm going to provide
in the show notes of thisepisode, or you can go to our
website,schoolforschoolcounselorscom,
and if the waitlist is still up,it's going to be right at the
top of the homepage.
Just click the link, enter youremail and then you're going to
be the first to know when thisbehavior breakthrough kit
(20:31):
becomes available.
I am all about you.
I am all about your success.
I'm holding nothing back,because I truly believe that
school counselors do some of themost important work on the
planet, and I want you to feellike you have what you need.
Beyond the silly printables,beyond the perfect world advice
(20:53):
that everybody seems to be soready to give you, I want to
talk about what's reallyhappening in the trenches.
So again, if you think thisbehavior breakthrough kit could
be useful to you, head on overto schoolforschoolcounselorscom
and hit the link at the top ofthe page.
I love school counseling, butthe one thing that I love more
(21:14):
than that is supporting goodschool counselors, and I'm in
your corner.
I'll be back soon with anotherepisode of the School for School
Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, my friend, Ihope you have the best week.
Take care.
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