What You Can Do to Help

What you can do to help if you see someone being bullied:

One thing you can do to help is to get a grown-up you trust and tell them about the situation. Some kids might believe that by doing that would be considered tattling but it is actually reporting. There is a difference. The definitions below are from the book Confessions of a Former Bully by Trudy Ludwig. 

• Tattling is when your intention is to try to get kids in trouble when they aren’t hurting themselves or others.

• Reporting is when you are trying to help kids out of trouble because they are getting hurt (physically or emotionally) or bullied.

Another way you can help is by being a "hero-bystander." Caring is the first step to helping. Here's a few more things you can do:

• Tell the kid who's bullying to stop --- only if you feel safe doing so. You should do this with other kids around to back you up. This takes some bravery, but if you feel safe doing it, it's a great thing to do. 
• Reach out to kids who are being bullied. Listen to them, support them, comfort them. Include them in to your activities or group. Most importantly, let them know that NO ONE deserves to be treated that way. 
• Don't join in on the bullying. If you laugh at other people being bullied, you're letting them know you think it's okay to be cruel. Don't encourage bullying by laughing or cheering while the bullying is going on, and/or spreading a nasty rumor. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. 

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”  - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. 

What this quote means to me is you might not remember someone bullying you, but you probably will remember if your friend is standing by watching you get bullied and not doing anything about it.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

I think this means that if you want to see change in the world, you can't wait around for someone else to do it; you have to make the change yourself. In the example of bullying, you can help by being a hero bystander and not wait around for someone else to do it.