All courses are suitable for children who maybe at risk or "susceptible" to bullying not just for those who are currently being bullied

By the age of 8 Children are well aware of the emotional pain that bullying can cause and therefore children can be properly labelled as bullies (In younger children there may not be a sufficient level of empathy developed for them to be able to see their actions as harmful and hurtful) as there are no other reasons or excuses that can be given for their actions.

This age group is one which is starting to move away from childhood and towards adulthood. Belonging to social groups becomes more important and bullying activities, such as exclusion from social groups becomes more hurtful and painful. It is also an age where bullied children become more aware of "why" they are being bullied and tie these reasons to their own identity causing serious crashes in confidence.

Bullying itself may also become more spohisticated and involved, using text messaging and email as a means of spreading ruomors and goossip and gaining access to a target/victim remotely. Places, such as the home are no longer safe havens from bullies, which increases the stress levels placed on the bullied child.

The content of the bully's message will also get more sophisticated due to a level of emotional intelligence that has not yet been developed in younger children. At this age children are very adept at finding out and honing in on weaknesses, which a younger child would not pick up on.

This is also an age group where the effects of bullying on academic achievement start to be seen.

For the 8-12 group we emphasise a lot of skills around "managing the bully": strategies for avoidance and disengagement along with how to prevent the bullies message e.g. "you're fat", "you're ugly" etc becoming internalized.

The next of these courses starts on Wednesday the 28th of January (the first lesson is FREE) and will be held at:

The Roshankish Martial Arts Center
393 Main Street
Medford
MA 02155

If you would like to book a place or require further interest please use the contact forms, which can be accessed by clicking here

Research Into Bullying

The SEPS ant-bullying program is not based purely on anecdotal evidence or on seemingly good ideas. It is based on solid, intensive research. You can help us understand school bullying by taking our online Bullying survey. It doesn't matter if you are a child/teen who is being bullied, the parent of a bullied child or whether you were bullied at school or not. 5 minutes of your time and your answers will help us considerably in our work to understand an end bullying.