Hi,

Because of a recent incident in my area, the country commissioners want to start an anti-bullying program for the county schools to start in the fall.

I would greatly appreciate hearing from anyone doing anti-bullying programs. Looking for ideas, resources leads, script development and simply how to best present the subject.

I'm gathering information about bullying (physical and otherwise), report to someone you trust, not be silence about it, how to recognize bullying, etc.....

I can be contacted at creativemac@aol.com or thru my site www.woodynfriends.com

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Donald Woodford

Yes Bullying and the Environment will be the hot topics over the next few years. We have plans to address both with AxTrax routines and products. Good to gather information on forums Donald.

Ax

I recently had a five-day, 21 show tour in which bullying was one of the topics I spoke on. The magic drawing board is EXCELLENT for this topic.

This topic has come up before on this forum. If you do a search on the forum for bully and click on match the word, you should hit the prior discussions.

I also enjoy using the drawing board. It is a magic mirror. Whatever I say to it comes back to me in some way. If I say something nice it says something nice. If I say a put down I get a put down back. But we end with the nice things again.

I LOVE the Axtell Bulldog for sing "Where have you been, Bully Boy, Bully Boy". First we talk about how he was trained to be a guard dog so he barks at anyone that comes nearby. It isn't easy to change the way someone has been trained. I'm trying to change him with kindness.
Then we sing the song. An idea I got from this forum!

I use someone like Laughin Louie who tries to tell jokes that make fun of people. I have to stop him.
"There were two blondes who went into a store..."
"A midget got on an elevator..."
"A fat man and a skinny man went to a restaurant..."
"A Canadian, a Mexican, and a Russian..."
He is taught that people don't like to be made fun of just because of their looks, their size, or where they are from. He learns knock-knock jokes or riddles instead.

I use the Axtell lion and an audience volunteer to teach the story of the lion (bully) and the mouse. Goes over great even though they've heard it before.

For magic you can use the applause meter and bring up a volunteer. Pretend that they are playing a sport and the audience is cheering them on! We need to build others up and not put them down.

I put a superman (or any superhero) cape on a puppet and we teach bullies that the difference between a super hero and a villain is how they chose to use their powers. For older kids I ask them about Spiderman 3. Was Sandman a villain in the beginning? Do you think he will keep being a villain? In the last Batman movie was two faced a bad guy in the beginning? Something happened and he decided to be a bully instead of a hero. I've also used the dolphin puppet for this and talked about how people love the dolphin, but don't like the shark. Bullies lose friends. Heroes gain friends!

I have a rocket ship clothes hamper (no longer available) and a puppet that comes out in a space suit. He wants to avoid the bully by leaving earth, so we talk about easier ways to avoid bullies, such as hanging around friends, taking safe paths, and having an adult nearby that you know.