If the student was a follower/supporter of the bully:

  1. Intervene Immediately
  2. Provide a system of graceful accountability while allowing natural consequences to occur
  3. Create opportunities to “do good”
  4. Nurture empathy
  5. Teach friendship skills – assertive, respectful, and peaceful ways to relate to others
  6. Monitor/Criticize/Converse about TV shows, movies, music, and video games that reinforce violence against others
  7. Engage in more constructive, entertaining, and energizing activities

If your student hurts others through gossip have them:

  1. Apologize to the student who was hurts by the rumor
  2. Go to everyone they told it to and have them tell them it wasn’t true
  3. Ask them to stop spreading it
  4. To the best of their ability, repair any damage done to the target by the act of spreading the rumor
  5. Take the next step of building a new and healthier relationship

Three principles that foster moral independence:

  1. Teach your students that he/she and only he/she is responsible for the consequences of his/her own action (kids who accept responsibility for their own actions are more likely to live up to their own moral code)
  2. Build your student’s confidence in his or her ability to make good decisions (kids who have confidence in their own judgments are not easily manipulated by others)
  3. Teach your students how to test reasons/motivations on his or her own (kids who have confidence in their own ability to reason are more questioning and more resistant to passive acceptance of others)