7 Ways To Help Prevent Name-Calling at Your School

When I was in elementary school, kids were often teased and called names. Not good. But it was the 1960s and, frankly, issues like bullying were not top of mind. And while we are far from perfect today, we are making progress with events like No Name-Calling Week, which takes place next week, Jan. 19-24. 

What’s even more heartening is to see how so many PTOs and PTAs are on the front lines of this issue, supporting their schools by running programs that encourage and reward kindness. 

If next week’s No Name-Calling celebration inspires your group, we have some simple ideas you could implement anytime throughout the school year. We’ve gathered these ideas from our community, our own PTO Today resources, and from the No Name- Calling Week website, www.nonamecallingweek.org

1. Make a video that emphasizes how hurtful name-calling can be. Provide teachers with the video so they can use it in their classrooms to promote discussion. Ask teachers from each grade for a few student volunteers who can appear in the video. Get input from the students about what should be said in the video to make sure it will appeal to kids. 

2. Ask the school librarian if you can create a display with books that teach lessons about kindness or have an anti-bulling message. 

3. Run a poster or artwork contest at the school in which kids are encourage to illustrate kindness. 

4. Hold a T-shirt design contest that supports a kindness theme. Create a small list of semifinalists and have students vote on best T-shirt. Then, if the budget permits, provide each student with a T-shirt. 

5. Work with the principal and teachers to create a rewards program for students “caught” in an act of kindness. Select a few student winners each month. Reward: A special pizza-with-the-principal lunch. A spin on this idea would be to name a “Citizen of the Month,” naming one student who has demonstrated kindness in an outstanding way. 

6. Set up a buddy program to team up older students with students in younger grades. The older students can model good behavior while spending time with the younger students. They could team up as reading buddies, lunch buddies, or bus buddies. 

7. Create a kindness bulletin board at school that spotlights individual classrooms throughout the year. Ask classroom teachers to provide drawings, short essays, or other expressions of kindness from their students that you can display on the board.