Advice for avoiding summer camp bullying

Learn about: Advice for avoiding summer camp bullying from Joel Haber, PhD,...
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Advice for avoiding summer camp bullying

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Summer camp is a great opportunity for kids to have time away from parents generally, if they do resident camps, or just to have an opportunity away from school where they have a lot of social opportunity too. I've been very fortunate to work for the American Camp Association, and I spent a lot of time researching and training in this bullying field there. But here's the truth about bullying: it happens everywhere. It happens in schools and it happens in summer camps and everywhere kids are. So the bullying that happens in summer camps is not so different from what happens in school. There's exclusion, there's physical bullying, there's verbal bullying. But here's the thing to think about: As a parent, you make a choice to send your kid to camp. So you wanna talk to the director before you send your child to camp and ask them about their bully policy, and you want to find out specifically what they do to handle those situations. Do they train their staff? Is it ongoing? What do they do specifically? Everyone's gonna tell you that they all have anti-bullying policies. But you want to see it and you want to feel the passion of a director who won't tolerate it, with specifics on how they're going to handle it.

Learn about: Advice for avoiding summer camp bullying from Joel Haber, PhD,...

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Joel Haber, PhD

Psychologist, Bullying & Parenting Expert, Author

Dr. Joel Haber is a Clinical Psychologist and internationally recognized bully prevention and parenting expert. He was selected as a webinar leader and a speaker for the Obama Administration Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention initiative.  He was also an invited participant to the Second Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit in 2011. His recent book, Bullyproof Your Child for Life: Protect Your Child from Teasing, Taunting and Bullying for Good set the bullying standard for schools, camps, sports, organizations and families dealing with bully prevention and intervention. He recently published The Resilience Formula: A Guide to Proactive, Not Reactive Parenting.  He is a consultant and expert to the American Camp Association, and to LG Electronics as a member of (LGTextEd.com), providing cyberbullying and mobile harassment expertise to parents and families. He is an advisor to Cartoon Network’s anti-bully campaign: Stop Bullying: Speak Up.  He is an expert for No Snap Judgments: The Addams Family Broadway Show- National Campaign to promote acceptance and tolerance amongst our youth. He is also co-founder of Tool Kits for Kids (toolkitsforkids.com), recipient of five national parenting awards for helping parents and kids develop the tools and emotional life skills to overcome worry, build confidence and develop resilience. He has written and published extensively, speaking each year to thousands of parents and educators to help make children’s lives, safer and better. 

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Transcription: 
Summer camp is a great opportunity for kids to have time away from parents generally, if they do resident camps, or just to have an opportunity away from school where they have a lot of social opportunity too. I've been very fortunate to work for the American Camp Association, and I spent a lot of time researching and training in this bullying field there. But here's the truth about bullying: it happens everywhere. It happens in schools and it happens in summer camps and everywhere kids are. So the bullying that happens in summer camps is not so different from what happens in school. There's exclusion, there's physical bullying, there's verbal bullying. But here's the thing to think about: As a parent, you make a choice to send your kid to camp. So you wanna talk to the director before you send your child to camp and ask them about their bully policy, and you want to find out specifically what they do to handle those situations. Do they train their staff? Is it ongoing? What do they do specifically? Everyone's gonna tell you that they all have anti-bullying policies. But you want to see it and you want to feel the passion of a director who won't tolerate it, with specifics on how they're going to handle it.