As I mentioned last week, my family loves to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer together. It’s a wonderful story with lots of great characters and the kids all really enjoy it.
My husband and I like watching it for the same reasons, but for another as well. We like watching Rudolph because it’s a wonderful way for us to start teaching children about bullying. Talking to the kids about what happened to Rudolph in the movie makes the subject interesting for the kids and they can really understand what Rudolph went through.
The kids saw that even though Rudolph was friendly and wanted to play with the other reindeer, they weren’t nice to him and shunned him because of his appearance. The topics of acceptance, diversity and bullying were all easy for the children to understand when they saw playing out in a favorite movie.
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We watched the movie together and were able to talk to the children about their experiences with bullying.
My daughters both understood what bullying was and talked about how they help prevent bullying among their peers at school. My younger son understood that the other reindeer “made Rudolph sad and that wasn’t nice”. He seemed to start to “get” how being mean actually affects the other person.
We’ll continue to talk to the kids about bullying and acceptance, and can remind them of what happened in the Rudolph story. It’s important to us that they always remember to “Shine Bright” and celebrate differences in one another.
Rudolph Classroom Activities to Prevent Bullying
We found great activities in PACER’s Educator’s Guide that can encourage conversation with your kids at home (as well as in the classroom) about celebrating differences and acceptance of others.
Download your free guide here: Educator’s Guide from PACER
Bullying never seems to go away. It’s a sign of insecurity — or even abuse at home.
I think it is always a great thing to teach kids early on about bullying, it goes on so much it is great to promote awareness about it.
Bullying seems to be getting worse and worse.
I was bullied to the point that I didn’t want to go to school because of my speech problems and shyness. No one cared at my school, it was supposed to “toughen” you up. It did toughen me up to the point that I felt I needed no one to help me, that I would help myself always. When two of my children were bullied in grade school, I threw fits at their schools but nothing was done about it so I removed all my children from public school and homeschooled for several years before sending them to a Christian school where bullying wasn’t tolerated. The public schools talk about all their non-bullying policies and hold yearly events but they don’t really carry thru has been my experience.
Bullies here in Ohio are going to start to be handled with the parents playing a large part.They have to be getting the ”macho ” image from somewhere is what the police said last night and kid are not paying for these kids commenting suicide .We have lost 3 and one was in the bathroom at the school so you can only imagine how mad the chief of Police are . The other 13 yr old last night ,dad comes home with her in her room and started in 6th grade and they thought it was over then they knocked her down in hallway and she said she had enough..he cried the whole time.
I feel the bullies should see them in casket and let them know could be them and hold the casket and take it till it goes in ground.. Parents need to be more responsible for this kids with the attitudes too ..Not enough child laws in Ohio to begin with –THANK YOU FOR SHARING I sent the download around …you can bet ./ <3
I am so glad you are teaching your kids about bullying! It’s so important! I wish every parent would. The world would be a better place.
its good to teach kids about bullying and how best to deal with it.bullying seems much worse these days than in the past
It’ s good to be teaching children about bullying and it’s nice to have the tools to help
I have talked with my kids repeatedly a bout bullying and how to defend those and help those they see being bullied. This needs to stop and i Have read where a lot of schools seem to do nothing for those that are being bullied by others. Maybe the school system is where we need to start so they can be more educated on this issue
Wow! Never thought to use it as a teaching tool. This would be great right about now for us.
It is a good bullying teaching tool in a way that kids can understand
I know to talk about Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and the ‘bullying’ message with your kids during the movie could be a good idea…I don’t have any kids though so I don’t know.
Such a great tool to use to discuss bullying with children. It’s a wonderful story for them to understand. 🙂
Discussing bullying with children is very important. The last thing I want is for my child to be bullied because he might be different.
what a great way to convey the message to our children
i know bullying goes on i was bullied in school but i think their is so much being done now to stop it
I love that you used Rudolph to teach your children about bullying, it’s a great idea! I was bullied some as a child but not nearly as bad as some children and adults have been. The more we teach about it the more our children understand and hopefully adults will realize it as well. It is a horrible offense no matter what age the person is.
I have big plans in my future to help the prevention of bullying. It really does start with the parents and teaching their children to be kind to others! Perfect example in this movie and I think that is great!
There are some great tips, here! I would like to use some of this in m yclassroom.
What an awesome campaign. Bullying is disgusting.
When I was a kid “bullying” meant physically threatening someone and now it just really means “teasing”. I was teased a lot as a kid, especially in junior high, and I cried over it a lot. I think it feels like it’s worst now because it’s out in the open and discussed more. Also, there are a lot of creeps out there who are hiding behind their computers to harass others online. That obviously didn’t exist when I was a kid…they said things to your face not on the Internet.
This will be great for my son.