Welcome to the DCSD Notebook Parent University Edition. [music] Whether you're new here or a veteran listener, welcome. My name is Amy Fister and I'm the community relations coordinator for the Douglas County School District. Parent University was originally created to help families navigate [music] the
parenting waters of having school-aged children by discussing relevant topics with industry experts and local community partners. The hope and goal is to help equip our families with knowledge and resources to help support [music] them in better understanding
some of the challenges our kiddos are facing in today's day and age. We have a sizable library of past parent university recordings and [music] are going back into the archives to take past episodes that were originally recorded on Zoom and turn them into a podcast. On today's episode, originally
recorded in November of 2024, we're talking with [music] Dr. Kelly Smith, DCSD's director of health, wellness, and prevention [music] about bullying awareness, and prevention for our DCSD students. From the developing adolescent brain, the effect external [music]
influences can have, and the role DCSD schools play, you'll hopefully leave with a better understanding and awareness of the term bullying, and [music] how we can all work to help prevent it. We hope you enjoy this episode. I'm going to first talk a little bit
about brain development and how current brain development influences um behaviors that could contribute to bullying, environmental influences that our kids are exposed to. Um then talk a lot about the definition of bullying and
then what the school role, the parent role, and then what you can do to support your child and then resources. So we'll get right into it. All right, my favorite topic, brain development. So when babies are born, um there is a
blue blueprint that creates the brain structure and that is created from the genes of their parents and that's the foundation of what starts this massive growth within the first few years of life on the structure of their brain. So
we know that when babies are born the brain stem which is the primitive part of their brain that controls sensory mo motor and the survival part of their brain is developed first and then throughout their early childhood and adolescence and young adulthood their
brain grows from the back to the front with the frontal lobe being the last to develop well into the mid20s which is the logical thinking part of the brain. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about that and why that matters when we talk about um students and skills that they
come to school with around bully prevention. So, when babies are born 90 they're 90 days old, their 64 brain is 64% larger than their newborn brain. And at five, 90% of their brain is the size of an adult brain. And childhood is the
most critical time for brain development. So when they're at this critical growing part of their brain, they're exposed to positive or negative experiences that shape this process. And this these positive and negative experiences help build these neural
pathways in their brain that are the foundation for all future learning. So as babies, when they're interacted with, they're building pathways for motor skills, for behavioral control, for language, for memory, for emotional processing, for visual processing. So,
if babies are exposed um more and more to one area, that pathway gets really strong by the time they get into school. If they're not as exposed to experiences that promote that pathway, that might be weaker when they get into school. So, this this important part of child
development happens before the age of five. So, 90% of this lyic system, this part of their brain, that's the survival part of their brain um grows. And the last part to grow is that frontal part which is what happens during school age,
early adolescent and adulthood. So when we talk about brain development, these pathways or neural pathways that are built, we like to think about the genes in the environment are what shape the brain. So you can see this picture here around birth all the way to six
years, how neural pathways are pruned. So we like to say if it's not used, it's lost. So use it or lose it. So if a pathway is not developed, those neurons end up dying away and that's called the synactic pruning. So this 0 to 5 is a
critical time to create these foundations for learning, behavior, control, emotion, motor, logic, language, and memory. And here's just another graph that talks about brain development through adulthood. So early childhood, adolescence and early
adulthood is when the brain is at its most plastic or growth part of their brain, which is why school age kids, we have such an influence um at that time in growing pathways for social development. So I love this picture when
I talk to parents because um I like to describe the growth of the brain at like when you're talking about an accelerator or a break. So the back part of your brain that's really strong when they're young, that survival part is that impulsivity part of their brain. So when
babies cry, they get fed, when um babies are wet, they get changed, if they want something, they know very early on what they have to do behaviorally to get their needs met in that survival part. The last part of the brain that is developed is the logical thinking part, that part that we use when we're in
school to make decisions. So the back part of the brain is this accelerator. If it feels good and they want it, they're going to go 100 miles an hour. The break is the frontal part of their brain that says, "Whoa, that might not be a good idea. That might hurt you. That might not keep you alive." So, when
I talk to parents, I like to use that accelerator and break. And it's important to know that by age 16, only 50% of the break part of their brain is developed. So I always like to say that when kids are 16 and they make decisions
that um we ask them why what were you thinking their response is well I wasn't. So they have an overactive accelerator and a faulty break. So that helps parents understand that they don't always make the right logical decision because their brains are still working
on building those pathways. So let's talk about how brain pathways were developed in past generations and how environmental influences are creating these pathways now. So again, early growth and development. So this
stage of rapid growth that's responsible for all these things that we need our kids to be able to do when they get into school. So, as they begin to understand how their emotions feed into getting what they need, this is laying that foundation for all their future social
interactions. And that's important to think about when we get into um conflict and bullying behaviors. So, think about the social interaction pathway. So we know in child development and in brain development that
synchronous which is together and physical interactions face to face are a huge part of brain development and human development for kids. It's essential that kids experience these um have these experiences that build these pathways
that form positive connections. It develops this thing called attunement. And attunement is really where kids can look at one another and learn to read body language and facial cues and eye contact. Um they're aware of how they're
um putting themselves in situations to navigate conflict and problem solving and developing empathy is hugely important at this age. And that pathway can be very strong by the time they get to school if they're provided experiences where they're practicing.
Um, so this pathway gets built and built. So the synchronous face-to-face physical interaction is so important to develop these neuropathways that help regulate these social interactions when they get into school. So I want you to consider social interaction pathway
development around empathy, attunement, um, social interaction and conflict in these pictures. So, when you're looking at the students um circled up at the I on the iPad, they may be interacting, but think about what might not be be
being built in their um neural pathway around attunement and eye contact and body language. Also um in the top picture with the coach and the kids really organized sports if kids don't have pathway
experiences to build pathways around figuring it out for themselves or creating games for themselves and they have adults intervening and creating those experiences for them. Those are pathways that might not be developed as well. And it's important to remember that I'm not saying good or bad. It's
just what pathways are kids developing. And there are um pathways that help with certain foundational social interactions and then there's pathways that don't help with some of those social interactions. So when we talk about when kids get into
school, what we expect them to do early on in elementary school is to be able to advocate for themselves, to be resilient, um to be able to think outside the box and to navigate conflict that comes up on the playground or to read body language. Um those are all
things that kids develop early on in that zero to five with those experiences around those specific areas. And there's a great book by Jonathan Height. I know it's pretty popular right now. A lot of our staff have read it. Um, and parents as well called The Anxious Generation. And he is a social scientist that really
talks a lot about if we set kids up in environments that allows them to discover how to do these things on their own. It develops these skills that are necessary to navigate normal childhood conflict. So he goes into depth in the book and
talks about how this unsupervised outdoor play, teaches them how to handle risk, conflict. It builds agency. It really builds those neuropathways so that when they get into school, they're able to navigate that without adults intervening.
So I want you to consider in these pictures, consider what pathways are built in some of this type of play. And some of this is put in here by design to be a little um over the top, but I was a child of the 70s and 80s. And this is a lot of like what our playground looked
like and how we played. Um so be thinking what pathways were being built within my brain. And I I love the one about the human slingshot. I look at it more around um the rust risk for that. And I'm not saying we should put our kids in danger, but
there's some part of this risk averse um childhood that some of our kids have that are not allowing some of these pathways to develop. Again, here's some more um pictures of things that our current generation of kids spend a lot of time doing. And then
I just want you to consider what are some of those pathways being built. So, think about um the playground here as opposed to the slide the the playground in the last slide. Um and I was a principal in the district for quite a long time and our playground looked like the one in this picture. And we had one
piece that was left over from the former playground that looked more like the picture, the previous picture. And we had a student that got hurt on it. The first thing I did was take that piece out. And then I as I'm doing this research, I'm thinking, you know, there's and the kids were really mad that I did it because it it provided
them this outlet to have a little bit of risk when they were playing um which builds that pathway. So I want us to consider that how this unsupervised access to the world um through digital
media and this restricted access to this physical interaction, how that might shape kids brains differently. And in schools, we know that that is happening now. Our kids' brains are being um changed at rates um different than ever before. Allowing kids to be on on
computers and social media without guard rails on that um is exposing them to things that are building pathways that we may not um that we that we may not agree with. So, it kind of boils down to this discover mode or defed mode type of
mindset. So, when you're thinking about putting kids in environments where they're discovering how to get along with others, they're reading attunement, they're taking some calculated risks, um they learn to scan the environment for opportunities, to seek new experiences
and to think for themselves and to be curious and ask questions. If we put our kids out in an environment and we're constantly telling them, "Watch out for this, watch out for that. This might not be safe. This might not be safe. You might get hurt if you do this." They learn and build pathways around scanning
for dangers. They become defensive. They develop anxious tendencies because they feel that everything could be a threat. So, I want you to think about when you get into school, these kiddos, depending upon these pathways that were built, if a student does or says something um that
might not be understood by a student that is in the defend mode, they're going to probably go towards a negative mindset rather than a curious mindset, which could cause conflict and does get um us into some of those behaviors
around bullying. So going into some environmental influences, when you have that pathways um idea in your brain, think about how the environments that our kids are in now cause changes in the gray matter in the growth of their brain. So if you
remember the back part of the brain, that impulsivity, I'm going to do it because it feels good. The frontal, the break, it's not fully developed. So, if we keep practicing things in the back part and not the front part, think about how that's growing. We want our kids to be able to have
brains that are developing um in that break part of the brain. And one of the biggest things that that arrests that development or stops that development is when we put kids in environments that cause chronic stress. We know that cortisol is a hormone that within
regulated releases in the body like positive stress causes um kids to get up and move and and motivates them to get things done. But if there's a cycle of cortisol that's courarssing through their bodies all the time, it actually
stops the frontal lobe from growing. So that prefrontal cortex, that break part of the brain that we need kids to have in school to make good decisions, it won't grow at the same rate as typical peers. And when kids do have experiences
that are causing a lot of stress throughout childhood, it looks like hyperactivity, lack of attention, impulsivity, and learning difficulties, which also looks like ADHD. So, I've been talking with staff and parents
about if kids are presenting with these um symptoms. Let's ask some more questions before we we think it may be a diagnosis of something else. So, this kind of brings us to the
conversation around ACES and um ACES, which is adverse childhood experiences and positive childhood experiences. So things that cause an overactive cortisol in kids' brains that stops that frontal lobe from growing are things like abuse, neglect, household challenges, things
that cause a lot of stress for kids during that really critical developing part of their brain. And there's research that talks about we can stop that um cortisol and that arrested development of the front part of the
brain if we implement positive childhood experiences. So family foundation, family resilience, school community, adult presence, these are all the type of positive experiences that can counterbalance and neutralize that cortisol so that logical decision part
of their brain can continue to grow at the same rate that we need it to grow. So here's just some more examples of what positive childhood experiences are. So, being able to talk to your family about your feelings, um, feeling families that stood up for them in difficult times, enjoying participating
in community traditions, feeling a sense of belonging in high school is a is a really um, uh, something that we're talking about a lot in the prevention sciences world because there's a lot of connection around that as being a protective factor for kids. um staying
away from risky behaviors, friends, um having adults that take interest in them and feeling safe and protected um by their adults in their home are just some examples of those. So, I want to talk a little bit. So, negative experiences
stop the frontal lobe from growing. Um screens on the developing brain. We're now finding a lot of research with um MRIs around how it's actually changing the thickness of kids brains if they're on screens more than two hours a day.
And it's actually been linked to cognitive impairment in this executive functioning or visual memory part of the brain, that frontal lobe. So, it's stopping um excessive screen time in young kids is stopping um brain growth um and causing pathways to not be
developed. Um so, this is just an MRI. It's kind of confusing to look at, but this is actually a picture. This higher resolution is showing that there's less well-developed white matter tracks, those connections throughout the brains for kids who are on screens more at
young ages because remember that's the most critical part of brain development is those early years for kids. So ultimately it's less developed pathways needed for learning. And we have noticed in our early um preschool and
kindergarten that there there are kids coming in with less language literacy and less ability to have this executive functioning, this organizational um thinking part of their brain. So again, this is just another picture
of an MRI of cell phones that are on or off. Um, I thought this was pretty interesting around how excessive cell phone use on developing brains actually changes the neuroplasticity, which is how brains grow, because it has an effect on how sugar is metabolized in
the brain. And the American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry is now recommending that there's no screens for kids until they're almost two, which um I I think is pretty pretty interesting. um social media in the developing brain.
Um I have a whole different presentation on this. When you think about this just in the sense of brain development, this habitually checking of social media is changing pathways in kids' brains that are similar to pathways that get changed
through addiction. So, kids are getting addicted and it's changing their brains and MRIs are showing that brains of addicted social media users and young kids look similar to brains of kids that are addicted to drugs or alcohol. And it's actually causing more sensitivity
to social cues um because of this dopamine that's being over um that's being over activated in brains and changing how kids are perceiving um this
the world around them. And then this study, and this is um as Amy said, this slide will have a link in here about this study that talks about two or more hours a day of screen time. Kids had lower psychological well-being indicators to compared to kids who had
less than an hour a day. So, I think it's important to consider that. All right. And I always like to add this in because we have such a um thing in our society about caffeine. And I think it's important for all of us as parents to understand that caffeine is one of the
most widely used and abu abused psychoactive stimulants in the world that we give our kids. Um it's the only addictive substance that we readily let our kids take and now we have these energy drinks. Um there's a book and there's a link in here that um I don't
know how they did it but they they did something with spiders where they inject them with different types of drugs. And right here, spiders that had caffeine. Um, their spiderw webs look similar to spiderw webs that were built with spiders being exposed to LSD, speed, and
marijuana. So, I think it's important that we understand that caffeine is just as in as dangerous on developing brains as other types of drugs. And the most critical thing that I think we don't always realize is it blocks um adinosine
which is the sleep inducing hormone that's released so that kids can fall asleep and stay asleep. And that's important because sleep deficits and developing brain is also causing changes in brain specifically smaller volume in
the frontal lobe which is that break part of the brain. So kids that are chronic have chronic sleep deficits um their frontal lobe or their their break part of their dra brain is growing slower than kids who do not have sleep deficits and it's causing all sorts of
cognitive problems. This is the book that I'm referring to. Um and I think it's interesting that we talk about the stages of sleep. So in this nonrapid eye movement, this happens in kids early in the night. And this is the part that
moves learning during the day from the hippocampus, that short-term memory to long-term memory. And this book has studies that show kids that are sleepd deprived and learn during the day and go to sleep without enough sleep, they don't remember what they learned the day before. And then kids that um are
missing this rapid eye movement of sleep which is the second half of the sleep. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for emotional processing. So that adage that your mom used to say go to bed sleep on it you'll feel better in the morning is actually true because
when you go to sleep this second part of sleep your sleep in the night helps you process through your emotional responses during the day so you're better able to think through them the next day and I think it's important that we understand that blue light on phones and screens
causes kids to not get these critical stages of sleep they may be asleep sleep, but they're not going through these nonREM, these deep sleep and REM sleep patterns because their sleep is being disrupted. So, caffeine and blue screens are really impacting our kids um
ability to learn and ability to emotionally process and regulate. And what I talk to staff about is that if you have kids that are coming to school and they're really sleepy one minute and they're really excited the next and then they're really angry the next, it's because the connection between the
accelerator and the break is severed. So they have no ability to regulate um their impulses that that break part of their brain isn't speaking to the back part of their brain. And what scientists are realizing now is that se sleep deprivation in developing brain causes
aggression, bullying, behavior problems and violence. So I always tell everyone if we could fix one thing in our society and it would be having people understand that sleep directly impacts learning and behavior and if we could fix that um I
think we would see a whole different um type of learning in our schools. And then I always throw this in being in the prevention world. Um we have seen an uptick in our um self student self-reporting of alcohol across the country and specifically in Colorado
that our middle school kids are experimenting with alcohol um 10% more than they were even two years ago. And alcohol also changes the developing brain. It reduces the size of the hippocampus which stores short-term memory. It reduces that. So they are not
able um to move that into long-term memory and it's slowing the growth of the bra part of their brain which all these other environmental things are also slowing that growth. So I think it's important that we teach kids don't even try it. It's not okay to even try
drugs and alcohol on developing brains because it changes the structure so drastically. So then they affect. So thinking about pathways and the things in our environment that are changing the way our brains are growing in our kids.
These are all the things that we see. This the ACEs, lack of sleep, excessive screen time, drugs and alcohol and and this picture at the bottom about access to anything. we have this um kids are accessing things on the internet and on
the web that they might have seen for the first time and it it's it's really having a a detriment on how they're able to process these images and then body image through social media and all of that. There's all of these things are contributing to um pathway growth and
lack of this growth in the frontal lobe of their brain to help them make those those logical decisions. So just to wrap this section up, we're really talking about these environmental factors really physically change the gray matter of our kids' brains and it's really affecting
emotion, memory, motivation and this prefrontal cortex which is responsible for learning and social interaction in our kids. And I love this graph because this really resonates with me as a parent and as a teacher, as a principal, and now in
the role that I'm in now. And when I talk with schools and parents about this, um, it does resonate. So, this is a building blocks for learning. The source is here. It's from a medical doctor named Pamela Caner that she had her team research what are measurable
and teachable skills that are foundationally kids need to have in order to access academics. And they came up with this building blocks for learning. And their statement is pretty powerful in saying that the bottom three rows really
kids 0 to five build that foundation for through those experiences and building those pathways. And when kids don't have those experiences and build those pathways, these three critical areas really are indicators that can set kids
up for conflict, emotional regulation, how to read social situations, and how to build relationships and manage those skills, which is directly aligned with what we're seeing around bullying and conflict in schools. So, these bottom three rows, um, what we're doing in
Douglas County is really trying to infuse these within our academic content to identify what kids may have holes that didn't get these skills when they were in childhood because we know when we get when kids are in school, we need them to be self-directed, have
curiosity, have civic identity, academic press, and agency and resilience. They can't have those if they have holes in the bottom three rows. So, I think it's really important to tie that into why we see um specific behaviors in our kids
that we may not have seen before. And I love this picture as well because when I was in teacher school in the early '9s, I was taught that 90% of the kids that'll be in your classroom really have brains that are similar. Well, that is flipped upside down now because there's
so many varied experiences kid can have. Kids can have good, bad, and indifferent. It's just different. So our kids' brains are much different and they're different from the person sitting next to them. So that's why it's important for our staff and for parents
to understand that every kid is developing differently and might have different needs that do um feed into why we need to help identify some of these skills in some of our kids. So given that it's resulting these different
holes in these um skills are really resulting in defend mode thinking which is causing lower skill development in solving conflict. So when kids are coming to school um they're not able to navigate at the rates that they used to because they they may not have practiced
that as much before they got into school. It's leading into this assuming a negative intent, this defense mode type thinking. Um, if they're not practicing empathy, it's difficult for them to read and understand other people's perspectives. And that really
comes if we have excessive screen time and not being able to be outside and have this face-to-face learning. Those pathways aren't solid by the time they get into these situations at school. So, it's impairing social skills. Um, it's negatively impacting how kids are
interacting. And I think it's interesting to also consider if kids are on social media in in later elementary and middle school, they really have unrealistic expectations about how other kids should behave. So it's adding to that not really being able to read
situations and understanding how to solve that in a positive way. And this disrupted sleep. So if kids aren't getting enough sleep, they're not able to regulate their emotions. their impulses are much more heightened when they get into school and it's causing um
more conflict for them not being able to be regulated when they're in challenging situations which we know all kids go through challenging experiences with peers throughout elementary and then skill deficits in self-regulation and self-awareness. These are the two most
important skills that kids need in order to solve social conflict, which we know social conflict happens every day in the world. And when kids have deficits in these areas, it's difficult for them to navigate those and it can lead to bullying behavior.
All right, I know that's a lot. I'm going to keep going. Um, and we're almost through. I I want to spend some time talking about what bullying is and how um you can support it at home, we support it at school, and then have some time for some questions. So, in Douglas
County, our policy describes bullying um in this way. And I'm just going to read it because I think it's really important that we all understand what this definition is. So, um bullying is any written or oral expression or physical or electronic act or gesture, including cyber bullying, and it it follows these
characteristics. It's intentional and repeated. There's an imbalance of power. It could be physical power. That kid is bigger than another, social power, soio economic power. Um it's intended to coersse or in intimidate. It's purposeful. It's intended to cause
physical, mental, or emotional harm. And then if it's sufficient, sufficiently severe, it also will create an intimidating, hostile, or significantly offensive environment. it can be unreasonably interfering or disrupting the educational performance. So, it's
really important that we define that when we get into the reporting part of bullying versus conflict. And I have linked in the deck um our board policy on bully prevention and then our our policy which is the implementation of that, what that looks like in our
district and the supports that we have in our schools for prevention and intervention. So, one of the things that we talk about with our administrators and with our parents is, is it truly bullying? So, we we know that kids have conflict and
conflict that causes harm is not okay and we handle that in different ways than we handle bullying. So, it's really important our kids and staff understand what's conflict and what's bullying. So, we have them go through these four questions. Was the behavior on purpose?
Was it intended to cause harm? And is there a pattern? So it could happen one time and you could answer yes to questions one and two and if it happened one time and it was resolved it would not be considered bully. It's not okay and it will be addressed. The bullying definition is really if there's a
pattern of this behavior that's going on and on and then the fourth one is is there an imbalance of power? So we really try to go through these questions to determine how we respond because responding to conflict is different than responding to bullying. And I'll get to
that in a second. So, I think most people understand these four different types of bullying, verbal, physical, social, and cyber. Um, and there's lots of different pictures or graphs that talk about um explaining the different ones. And this is here for you to refer
to as well. And one of the things that we have do in our schools is really talk to the kids about is it bullying or something else. It could be something else that's still not okay, but we want kids to be able to recognize that. So, in conflict with
kids, sometimes rude that they're rude and was it an accident or unintentional? Doing things that are accidentally accidental or unintentional or doing things that hurt someone's feeling or embarrasses them could be rude and that's handled differently than if it's bullying. If it's mean, doing or saying
something on purpose to hurt someone once or twice, not okay, but would not be considered bullying. And then if it's conflict, conflict typically is described as a disagreement or an argument where two people have a point of view and there's equal power. So when
I was a principal, I would hear this all the time. They were friends and now they're bullying each other. Well, I would dig into that a little bit to say, "Okay, if they're friends and they both are arguing and they're both being mean, that would probably be equal power and we can handle that in a way to help
resolve that conflict and generally get it to stop." It's different when it's a bullying situation. So, I think it's important as parents when kids do come home and say, "So and so is bullying me," ask some clarifying questions. And I have some guided guide here I'll get
to where you can kind of be curious about that rather than putting a name on it first. So here's just a little graph like what's conflict? How do you feel? What steps did you take to deal with that conflict? So we can help build that agency with our kiddos.
So I think the the the biggest thing that we hear a discrepancy on is conflict and bullying. So, like I said before, conflict is a disagreement or an argument where both participants have a point of view and are sharing a point of view. Bullying is done intentionally with an imbalance of power and it's
really the goal is to hurt or harm or humiliate someone. So, when you're looking at bullying behavior, this power and control of another person, um it's usually students who bully perceive that their target is vulnerable and in some way and they
often find satisfaction in harming them. And we all have experiences where we've seen that either with ourselves or with our kids or um I think we can all kind of identify that as adults. It's difficult when your kids come home and say that because as parents we really
want and we need to be have agency and help them. Um their frontal loes aren't there. We have to help with that executive functioning for them and help them unpack that. But it's also very emotional to us because we don't want our kids to hurt. Um, so it's important we understand that normal conflict and
we help walk them through that. So can they read the cues if these lines are crossed? So with conflict, we like to say that kids understand through restoring conversations and conflict resolutions that they can change their
behavior and then they do learn from that. Bullying is different and that's handled differently. So conflict resolution or mediation the difference is that um conflict resolution or mediation strategies are sometimes misused to solve bullying pro
problems. So if we put a mediation or a conflict resolution we put two kids together. It kind of symbolizes that one was partly right and one was partly wrong. But in bullying that's not true. So we don't want to use these techniques if it's truly a bullying situation
because it puts the victim in a situation that further exacerbates the problem. So the appropriate message when a child is bullied is bullying is wrong and no one deserves to be bullied. So we're going to do everything we can to stop it. So our first go-to if we define
that as bullying is not to try to resolve and use mediation strategies um to move on from that. Um and then we have to make sure that we understand that harassment and discrimination um that definition is really around unwelcome physical or
verbal conduct. Same kind of thing, but it's really around a protected class. And if that is determined that bullying is happening around a protected class, that gets referred to our a different office that really handles those from
that compliance piece. So that's also what we're talking with our school leaders about is ensuring that if something comes in and it's defined as harassment or discrimination that is handled by a different office and then we support in prevention and
intervention around um if it is determined as um bullying. So here's just some common misperceptions about bullying. Bullying some people say it's a natural part of childhood. Bullying is often considered a natural part of childhood because it's common. But
physical or emotional aggression towards others should not be considered normal. So we don't want kids, we don't want to tell kids, well that's a normal part of childhood. You have to get through that. That that is not a normal part. That is not something kids should be experiencing. So I know that I always
heard this when I was a kid. Words don't hurt. Sticks and stones, but words will never hurt. That's not true. The fact is that kids learn in an early age that word words do hurt and they em emotionally do hurt. Um telling is tattling a lot of and we've did this as
elementary teachers. We teach kids telling and tattling. Telling is when somebody is being unsafe or you're unsafe. Tattling is to get someone in trouble. So, we need to make sure that our kids understand that difference and that if a student comes home or your
child comes home and says things that you really unpack, that's not tattling. If you're being physically, emotionally, or socially hurt, that's telling and telling is what we want you to do. We don't want to provide this secrecy. If bullying is happening, boys will be
boys. Um, aggression is a learned behavior. It's not a natural response. Boys are not um inherently um born to be aggressive verbally or physically. Um if my child is being bullied, it's okay for them to fight back. Um if your child fights back, the bull bullying will
likely become much worse. So that's why we need to make sure that we put in the right supports. Bullying makes kids tougher. The fact really is it has the opposite effect. It actually lowers kids self-esteem and self-worth. So, it's really important that if bullying is
happening that we address it right away. So, here's the school's role in Douglas County. Um, we have three foundational practices that we do. We provide these supportive environments where we're teaching what bullying is and what it isn't. And we provide um structures and
supports that kids know about so they feel safe at school. We have relationships that we build between staff and kids so that they feel safe coming to them. And then we integrate these lagging skills into content that may not have been taught because of environmental influences through early
childhood. And then once we have those foundations, we can get into the academic um the Colorado academic social emotional wellness health and essential skills standards that we teach within tier one. So I just talked about foundational practices. We have pro professional
development on those training for staff on how to recognize, respond, and report and also training for all of our kids. Um we have research-based anti-bullying practices around identifying lagging skills so that we can provide that teaching for students. Um and then we
partner with families to provide support and expectations for student behavior. We do have intervention processes. So schools have process to provide intervention. If we do um find a student that is a victim of bullying or
bullying, we do have interventions to support both. So, it would depend on the situation, but if there is a student that's being bullied, we would identify what's causing that and provide interventions to retach behavior. If there's a student that's been bullied, there may be some lagging skills that we
can help teach um while we're doing other safety measures to ensure that both are separated and able to learn. Um, so in Douglas County this year, we have rolled out a reporting form and this is a live link on this deck. It's also on the website. You can search in
in the Douglas County website bullyrevention and it will take you right to this page and it really walks through um this anonymous reporting form. And this reporting form goes right to the school staff that the school has designated as to receiving this form and
they will respond within a very short period of time to every single report that comes in off this reporting form. And then after it's reported, um, they reach out to the family. They say, "We got this. We're going to do an inquiry and investigation to this." They're
going to go through the bully prevention or the bully screening questions that I talked about earlier. They're going to determine is a conflict, bullying, harassment, and discrimination. And then they're going to put in the next steps based on that. So, examples could be separation, mental health support,
restorative practices if it's conflict, um, a whole host of different things. Um and that is all um talked about when the school reaches back out. And then this is the responding piece.
So I think this is the thing that's the most challenging for students that have been victims of bullying. I know as a mom um we want to make sure that this doesn't happen again and that the other student um had the appropriate discipline. And I can assure you that
the processes at the school they do um put in and this is in our policy too. All of these things could happen. Um these are some examples. If a student is found to be a bully, it could lead up to suspension or expulsion, law enforcement, all of these things. But
because of FURPA, which is a law protecting student privacy, the school is not allowed to share that with anybody else. So, what the victim's family would hear is how that student will be supported and the plan to ensure
safety measures are in place for that student, but they can't get into a lot of detail about what happened to the other student because of this FURPA law. Um, so then getting into I'm I'm almost at time to leave some time for questions. Um, the parents role. This really goes back to experiences and
pathways I talked about earlier on those bottom three building blocks to build this so that kids can have agency. So some of the things that we really are encouraging is child-directed outdoor play. This practicing of empathy, not
rescuing kids at an early age if they get into a um a childhood conflict. Um helping them in managing emotions, asking questions rather than telling. um ways to build self-esteem. So, not just um praising accomplishments, but
praising effort so that kids can feel that yes, they have the tenacity to move ahead even when things are hard. Um there's a lot of research around productive struggle and grit that when we have kids in that we call it the zone of proximal development where if kids
are in this zone where things are just a little bit hard but they're still moving forward it really builds that resiliency and that ability to um have agency and then prioritizing real world world experiences. Um, I do have on the
district site a toolkit around digital citizenship that's helpful to parents to really prioritize time on screens and real world experiences with some family um contracts that you can use with your kiddos. Um, setting expectations on type
of play, outdoor activities, exercise, exercise and sleep. Exercise neutralizes the cortisol and it regulates and helps kids sleep which we know helps regulate the brain for learning and emotions. Screen time limits um I do um believe
that with developing brains abstinence of drug and alcohol is the best foot forward um because brains are so pliable and so social media was not developed I always say this for developing brains. It was developed for fully formed adult
brains. So, our developing brains, it has a a much bigger impact um on those pathways and ability to be able to um navigate the world. Prioritizing sleep, um exercise, and nutrition. The best thing that you can do to get your kids
set up to be able to build healthy brains and grow that frontal lobe. We need our 16-year-olds driving with fully formed frontal loes, promoting these child, these positive experiences, opening communication. that you're the single best thing your kid
has to help promote these positive childhood experiences. So, you create that nurturing environment, curiosity, asking open-ended questions, modeling healthy habits, modeling respective respectful behavior and kind behavior.
Kids are such sponges. And then it's important we want we need families to collaborate with the school. So stay informed. Attend conferences. If something doesn't feel right, say something. Communicate with teachers. Build those relationships. They're watching you. Support school initiatives. Advocate for your kiddo.
Um, you are the person that needs to help be that frontal lobe for them because they they need someone in their corner. And you can do it in a positive and respectful way to um model that for your kiddos. Educate yourself, learn the signs, empower your child, seek support.
Um, ways that you can support. I just explained some of these things. Be an upstander. Encourage these behaviors. And then what to do if your child is a bully or a victim. So, here are some great resources. If your child's being bull bullied, here's some signs. Look
for destroyed possessions, if they're frequently ill, changes in habits, absences, I don't want to go to school, declining grades. All of these are warning signs that something's not right. There's also warning signs if your child happens to be a bully. So, are there um physical interactions,
verbal fights? Are they having friendship issues? Are they becoming aggressive? Are they getting in trouble at school? Are they unable to explain more money that they have or new belongings? Are they frequently and blaming other people? Those are also warning warning signs for some lagging
skill work that that they might need. And then I think the best thing we can um tell staff and families is if a student reports that something's not right, believe them. They need to know that even if it isn't bullying and it's conflict, something's not right and we're going to listen. We're going to
stay calm and we're going to validate. Thank you for sharing. We're going to help you reassure them and then develop a plan. Go to school, work with the teacher, work with the school um and then monitor and make sure that your child um is well. So, we're really um
leaning into this mantra, recognize, respond, report. We're teaching staff, students, families, recognize the signs, respond to your child report. And then here's some of our resources. The bullyrevention website link is there. Um, stopbullying.gov has great
resources. There's great articles on the national bullyreprevention website. Safetotell is a great resource. Our district reporting form. And then if there's some severe things that you're concerned in the moment, um some crisis hotlines, suicide prevention hotlines,
and and I do want to end with this before we have some time for questions is that if you do have a concern, Douglas County does have um a guideline for how you channel those concerns so that we can keep it at the school first
because those are the the staff and the and the individuals that know that child and the situation best. So if it's happening in a situation with a teacher or coach, you would address it there first. If you your your needs were not being met or you didn't feel like it was
being addressed, then you would go to the building administrator, the executive director of school, and so on and so forth. And then we do have a grievance process here. So we want to make sure that families are supported in all aspects of this. And we do take any kind of student misbehavior seriously
and there are consequences um for misbehavior and also lots of opportunities to retach and intervene. So that is there for you to access. And now um Amy, we're at the point for questions. I feel like I talked really fast. I much prefer to do this in
person. Um I know so much information. >> You need a take a sip of water. My gosh, [laughter] >> I'm like time. But I have like and I yeah >> that that was a lot and I heads are you know just spinning with a a lot of
questions. So um take a sip of water and I will um kind of navigate some of the questions that we um we have here. So one I'm trying to read between the lines here. um if there what if you have two different demographics that are um being
bullied like if it's you know um race or gender or is it is it treated equally if there is bullying on one side and then bullying on the other how is that navigated? Yeah, that is a great question and that's why we really lean into those screening pieces because I
hate answering these questions. Well, it depends. But it kind of does because if I like hypotheticals are hard because if there's an imbalance of power, if it's around different demographics and it's it's known and repeated and there's an
imbalance of power that that is defined as bullying and it could lead to our compliance office doing an investigation around harassment or discrimination because of that protected class. So, we've done a lot of work with our school leaders around how
to to disseminate that. Is it bullying? Is it harassment? Is it discrimination? And how do we move forward with that? And a lot of it is this inquiry process because there's a lot of work to be done to find out what actually happened.
>> That makes sense. I mean, there's it's factf finding, you know. >> Yep. >> Um, okay. Let's see here. [clears throat] Are ACE scores available for a kid? Is that something that is measurable? you can have. Yes, it's a great question and you can
um if you're interested in that the study that was done in the late 80s early 90s it was done by Kaiser Permanente and um that's where the ACE um the ACEs came from and there's I
should know it's in another slide deck of mine but you can Google it and it will tell you what they are and and I would caution you because a a kid could have four or five aces but have a lot of positive experience es and overcome some of those negative things that happen within their brain and body with
cortisol. But it could a kid could have one really intensive ACE and not be able to overcome that. So what we tell um our nurses and our mental health teams is when we wrap around with our families around we don't look at a number of ACEs but we ask questions around are there
things that we can do to help regulate the brains and body so that they can learn. Um but we we believe that in elementary and early adolescence there's so many positive things that can counteract that. But to answer the question, yes, you can find the ACE
questions, but I would take it with a grain of salt because it it's again it's a depends because it affects every kid differently based on the blueprint of their brain and the experiences they have. >> Okay, moving on. So, this one I'm not sure it's necessarily a question, but um
what happens in a situation if a student in the school district has a parent that's a little bit of a bully? Do you have resources for that family or for that student or how how do you navigate those waters or suggested navigation for those waters?
>> So, there's the question around a parents bullying parents or parents bullying staff >> that it's not clear. um just that maybe the parent is a bully, but what if they from the from the student perspective, if the student recognizes those
tendencies in their parent that maybe they have some bullying? >> Yeah. And I would say go through that process um around take it to the level that it is and then go up the chain because we do have a grievance process is a little more tricky because we're
focused on the student aspect of that. But we understand that there's other circumstances. But I would um I would go back to this. I don't know if my screen is still being shared, but I would >> Yeah, it is. Yeah. >> And really talk with those closest to that situation. And if you feel like
you're not getting any um traction with that, you go through these processes. And we do have a link to this grievance process that would would support that. >> Okay. And then what how do you handle a situation where a student feels like
they're being bullied, but they also don't want you they want to tell you, but they don't want you to do anything about it because they're worried about retribution or retaliation from the bully. >> Yeah. And that is the common thing that we hear and it is in our board policy that there is no tolerance for
retaliation or retribution. So I think what we have to do as as family if your student if your child's coming to you is just reassure that you're there to support them and the school also is going to do everything that they can to ensure that there's a support plan for that kid. And I think what we need to do
is make sure that we're constantly reinforcing this before they're in a situation of bullying to know what their rights are as a student and how it's going to be handled. And our kids learn a lot from those. This is why we have
training for our staff around the recognize, respond in the moment, and report because kids are watching. if they see something happening and a staff member doesn't respond in the moment, they're going to say, "Well, I'm not going to report that because it's not
happening." So, we've done a lot of work around staff recognize it and respond right then because that's a teaching moment. And we want to build those relationships where kids can feel that they are um they have that trust within the staff that they can and they are
going to be heard. Okay, thank you by the way for answering all of these. This is like on the spot I feel like. Um, and then again, I'm not sure this is a question, but any concern around using the term um unsupervised outdoor exploration versus uh supervised
non-inference with creative play. >> I love all of that. I know I hesitate as a parent, too, because I'm like unstructured play, someone's going to break an arm. Um, but I think we know as parents there are a lot of dangers out there in the world, but I think the point more is where where it's
appropriate, let them fall down and see if they can solve that. Um, I would never let my kid on one of the slides that we had thirdderee burns on. Right. >> It's not the truth. I know >> that's why I said that in the slide. It's a little bit dramatic to make the point, but um you know there are there
there is something to be said around allowing our kids to make safe mistakes and build those pathways. >> Absolutely. Agreed. Okay. Well, that is all of the questions that we have. Um but just want to really really thank you um Dr. Smith
for sharing tonight. Thanks for listening to the DCSD Notebook Parent University Archive podcast. Make sure you subscribe and listen to our podcast [music] wherever you find your podcasts.