1st-5th Grade Teachers

Trusted Adult

A trusted adult is someone you can talk to “about situations that leave [you] scared, confused, uncomfortable, or ‘icky’⁷.” Having more than one trusted adult is beneficial when one trusted adult is busy or not available when you need them. 

Trusted adults are our 

• Teachers
• Counselors
• Police officer
• Firefighter
• Can you name any more?

Healthy Boundaries:  Ways to show different kinds of love – Love, Caring Friendships, Kindness and Helpfulness

Describing different types of love and caring  that students may experience from family members and community members is a crucial step to helping them also build healthy boundaries. Every person that we meet has a different kind of love and caring to show. When we are with our parents, our mom and dad hold us in their arms, give us kisses, and give us big hugs. We also share love with our friends, we can hold hands with them, give each other hugs, laugh together, and share. Teachers and other adults at school also give us love! They may give us hugs, high fives. We laugh together, they help us when we get hurt, need a band aid, and they are there to listen to us.  Community members we meet don’t show us love, but we hope they show us kindness and helpfulness.  We are kind and helpful to people we meet.

This knowledge will help students identify what makes them uncomfortable. When someone makes us uncomfortable, afraid, or scared that is not showing love, caring friendships, kindness, and helpfulness that we deserve. If an adult or someone we know is touching us or making us do things we don’t want to do, find a trusted adult, like a parent, teacher, counselor, principal, who can help you.

Love for Parents/Family/Guardian

Ask students how their family shows love to them and  how they show love to their family.

A parents/guardians love towards a child may be filled with kisses, hugs, hand holding, helping us with hard tasks, listening when they cry or are upset, etc. 

A child’s love towards parents/guardians may be filled with hugs, laughter, going on adventures, etc. 

Love for Teachers

Ask students how their teacher shows love to them and how they show their teachers love.

Teachers may show their love through hugs, high fives, laughter, and spending time together.

Students show their love to their teachers by giving them hugs, singing with them, participating in classroom activities, and making arts and crafts for their teachers.  

Caring Friendships with Bus Drivers

Ask the students how the bus driver shows them caring friendship and ask the students how they show caring friendship to the bus driver.

A bus driver may show caring friendship by giving students high fives, saying good morning to them, and keeping them safe on the road. 

Students may show caring friendship to the bus driver by giving them a high five, saying good morning, and listening when the bus driver asks them to sit down.

Caring Friendships with Friends/Friends Family

Ask the students how their friends/friends family shows caring friendship to them. Ask the students how they show caring friendship to their friends/friends’ family.

• A friend/friend’s family may show caring friendship by sharing food, inviting people over to play, sharing toys, and giving hugs.
• A student may show caring friendship to a friend/friend’s family by sharing toys and food, saying thank you, and giving hugs.

Kindness and Caring with Community Helpers/Workers/Store Clerks/Ice Cream Man/Town Service

Ask the students how these community helpers show kindness and helpfulness and ask the students how they show kindness and helpfulness to the community helpers.

• A grocery clerk may show kindness and helpfulness by answering questions and showing where items are, as well as saying good morning/afternoon/evening.
• A student may show kindness to the grocery clerk by being polite, patient, and having good manners.

Personal space

Personal space is an important skill for children to learn, practice, and grow.  Understanding what personal space is and keeping up the skill helps children to engage more successfully in everyday interactions with peers and adults. This will help keep themselves safe as they will have healthy boundaries¹. Teaching kids boundaries for themselves, with family, friends, teachers, and strangers can help them advocate for themselves when they feel like that boundary is not being respected. 

Consent

Consent is giving someone permission. When someone asks to borrow a pencil or to use a toy, saying yes or no is really important. It is very important to use our words. Before someone takes something from us, like a toy or marker, we expect them to ask first. When we say no, we expect that person to respect and listen to what we are saying, “No, I don’t want you using my _____.” If someone says whether they can or cannot use someone else’s toy, pencil, etc. we must respect and listen to them. This is an example of what giving consent looks like and what not giving consent looks like.  Consent to touch someone is also important, and we must ask since “no one should touch another human without asking them first².” Consent is when both people agree to hug, eat together, hold hands, sit in someone’s lap, touch hair, play with others jewelry, or feel designs on someone’s shirt. Just because someone does not say no, does not mean the person is saying yes. Both people have to say yes². You need to use your words. It’s important to know that anyone can always say no at any time and can change their mind. 

Bullying/Peer Pressure

Bullying and peer pressure are forms of power that are used to hurt and control others⁴.  Bullying can be complicated⁴ as it is not only pushing or throwing things at someone. There are different types of bullying: 

• Active Bullying | Active bullying can be physical bullying and verbal bullying.
• Passive Bullying | Passive bullying is when the bully is making someone feel invisible by being ignored and not inviting them to play or participate in any group activity. 
• Cyber Bullying⁵ | Cyber bullying is when a bully sends mean messages through text messaging and social media. 

Nobody has permission to hurt others or make others feel unsafe⁴. This abuse can be coercive. Coercion can be behaviors like threatening to share someone’s secret to others, embarrassing someone, to blackmailing.  If someone is making others feel unsafe or hurting others, encourage them to speak to a trusted adult.

How to help someone being bullied:

• A bystander is someone who sees bullying in person or online⁶. Sometimes, as bystanders, we may feel powerless or scared to intervene, so we continue to watch and not help. An upstander is someone who sees someone being bullied and tries to help stop it⁶. If the bystander feels it is safe for them to help protect someone from being bullied, there are some options in how they can help, like being a buddy, interrupting, or speaking out⁶. Being a buddy means becoming friends with someone on purpose who could be vulnerable to bullying. This can be asking someone to play with you or eat lunch with you. 
• Another option to stop bullying is interrupting the bully. If you see someone being bullied, call the person over to sit with you at lunch or at another table. It gives a chance for the person being bullied to walk away. 
• Lastly, you can speak out against the bully. This might be hard to do, but if you speak out in a public area where safe adults are around or you are with friends who support you, there is safety in numbers. 

Sometimes it is not safe to help someone when they are being bullied. The best option is to always go to a safe adult for help.