Bullies to Buddies

“I wanted to stand up and cheer after hearing these common sense ideas. It was refreshing to hear anti-anti-bullying program thoughts.” – Richard Wilson, Counselor (Spokane, Washington 6.29.06)

“Philosophically brilliant.” – Robert Haines, Counselor, Worcester, Massachusetts

“Keep articulating this loud and clear. I work with several schools that have spent money, lots of it, on ‘Bully Proofing.’ These programs have little or no effect and suck energy out of staff and students alike.” – Michael Monnet, Counselor/Marriage and Family Therapist, Denver, Colorado

“I think this is a radical way of thinking and I love it! I wish I knew how to get all aspects of education on board – principals, teachers and students. I really like the idea of changing victims into victors. Kudos to your program and good luck.” – Denyse Hughes, Counselor, Cincinnati, Ohio

“Excellent, wonderful, practical help. This course should be offered to every school district!” – Meredith Baker, Counselor, Seattle, Washington

“Out of the box!!! Appreciate the fact that someone sees the bullying situation this way.” – Charles Ruffing, Counselor/Case Manager, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

“These are excellent concepts that everyone needs to know! I only wish all schools had to take this training.” – Heather Lanfranchi, Educator, Canton, Ohio

“I got answers/solutions to problems I couldn’t find in other bully programs.” – Donna Becka, Educator, Cleveland, Ohio

“A paradigm shift in understanding bullies…the reason behind the reason, behind the reason, behind the reason…” – Alice Garver, Counselor/Educator, Tallahassee, Florida

“What an amazing way to look at Bully/Victim relationships. It makes so much sense but is certainly not what we’re hearing in schools.” – Julie Frederickson, Educator, Tallahassee, Florida

“It is imperative that public educators adopt these techniques and use them to teach children how to help themselves!! Zero tolerance policies have failed in every endeavor they’ve attempted. Alcohol, drugs, violence, bullying, cheating…in many cases I believe they have taught the children how to be more manipulative.” – Holly Martin, Educator, Omaha, Nebraska

“Your advice is practical and empowering. You take the victim and turn him into the one with power.” – Ann Hofmeier, Assistant Principal, Chicago, Illinois

“Excellent. I wish I’d had this 20 years ago.” – Susan Shaw, Social Worker, Santa Rosa, California

“Thank you! These ideas and techniques will work for me in my classroom and at school. I can’t wait to try them!” – Susan Butler-Graham, Educator, San Francisco, California

“A paradigm shift that is necessary to the survival of schools and families. Listen to it!” – Gregory Golden, Psychologist, West Palm Beach, Florida

“I will definitely talk with my principal about replacing our ‘anti-bullying’ program with this approach. It makes ‘perfect sense’!” – Joan Harper, Counselor, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

“Finally a Bully Program that makes sense!” – Laura Kerstetter, Counselor, Norfolk, Virginia

“Good simplistic approach – Back to basics of putting responsibility back on the individuals and teaching them life skills that are desperately needed.” Jeanellen MacNeal, Counselor/Educator/Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counselor/Rehabilitation Counselor, Norfolk, Virginia

“Thank you for speaking up on the issue! You are a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’. We needed to hear this in this area of the country!” – Mary Schultz, Counselor/Educator, Duluth, Minnesota

“This is the most practical, common sense information I’ve heard!” – Marlane Huber, Case Manager, Indianapolis, Indiana

“This information is wisdom personified.! Eliminating a victim mentality is totally empowering.” – Bonnie Kleiman, Counselor, Dayton, Ohio

“This info presented another way of looking at the bullying problem and how programs today are often part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Than you for the skills.” – Marti Birch, Counselor/Case Manager/Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counselor, Dayton, Ohio

This method makes great sense – more that any other I’ve seen.” – Ellen Lowe, Counselor, St. Louis, Missouri

Turning Victims into Victors — Without Anyone’s Help and Without Getting Anyone in Trouble

This website is created and written by Izzy Kalman, MS,
Nationally Certified School Psychologist, and nationally
renowned lecturer on Anger Control and Bullying

Bullies to Buddies™:
The sensible alternative
to the anti-bully movement

Are you a student? Does your school have an anti bully program, but no matter how hard the school tries to protect you, kids continue to bully and hate you?

Are you a parent? Are you upset because the school’s anti bullying program doesn’t seem to be helping your child?

Are you a teacher or principal? Does it feel as though your school’s anti bully policy is turning your school from an educational institution into a law enforcement agency? And does the bullying seem to be increasing in your school?

Are you a school counselor, psychologist or social worker? Has your job become miserable since your school made you responsible for going after bullies? Are you feeling more like a policeman than a mental health professional?

If you are happy with your school’s anti bullying program, you may not need this website.

But if the anti bullying program doesn’t seem to be doing what you expected, you have come to the right place.

It’s often said that bullying is a skyrocketing problem in our schools. Why? In the years since the Columbine massacre, schools all over the country have been adopting anti bully programs. We’ve heard countless anti bully messages on TV. Why is bullying going up instead of down?

Education has a “dirty little secret”: Whole school anti bullying programs usually don’t work -- or even make the problem worse! Psychologist David Smith of the University of Ottawa conducted a meta analysis of all the published research on whole school anti bully programs. Know what he found? 86% of the published studies showed that the program had no benefit at all or even made the problem worse! 14% of the studies found that the anti bully program had a mild benefit. Not one produced a major improvement!

What does this mean for victims of bullying? If victims have to rely on others to protect them from bullies, they may be bullied for the rest of their lives.

There are two ways to reduce bullying:

Teach kids to stop being bullies.
Teach kids to stop being victims.

One of these ways works well. The other doesn’t. And there are many reasons why. Here are a few.

If we are kids in school and you bully me and I tell the teacher or principal, is that going to make you like and respect me? Of course not! It will make you hate me and want to get back at me. You are going to want to beat me up after school, or try to get me in trouble with the school for bullying you.
In order to get people to change, they have to feel they have a problem. But who are the “bullies” that need to change? Very few people see themselves as bullies. If you accuse people of being bullies, they usually deny it! Does anyone come for counseling or therapy complaining, “Help me! I’m a bully!” Of course not. Everyone who comes for help… everyone who is suffering… feels like a victim! The “bully” is always the other person – “its’ not me.” If you are a victim and you have to depend on bullies to change, you are going to be a victim for the rest of your life! But if you know how not to be a victim, no one can bully you and your misery disappears almost immediately.
There is far more bullying going on at home than in school. My surveys of thousands of educators and mental health professionals show that their own children are four times more likely to be hit by a sibling at home than by another child in school. If two parents – experts at human behavior -- can’t get their own two children to stop bullying each other, how can you expect one teacher to get thirty kids to stop bullying each other? Furthermore, most of these same experts are currently bullying, or being bullied by, someone in their own lives. If the experts don’t know how handle bullying in their own lives, who is going to teach the rest of us?

What is the Bullies to Buddies™ philosophy?

The only place where everyone is always nice to each other is Heaven, and you first have to die to get in. But as long as you are alive, there are going to be all kinds of bullies -- schoolyard bullies, pre-school bullies, teen bullies, adult bullies, workplace bullies, sibling bullies, parent bullies -- and you need to learn to deal with it. How do you do it? In order to turn your bullies into buddies, you have to treat them like buddies – even when they treat you like bullies! That is what the Golden Rule is all about! Bullies to Buddies™ is a also firm supporter of Freedom of Speech and individual responsibility.

What Bullies2Buddies.com Provides

For victims of bullying:
It is effortless to stop being bullied if you know the rules. Read our free, online manual, How to Stop Being Teased and Bullies without Really Trying. There is a printer friendly version, as well as Spanish and Dutch translations. We also sell a reasonably priced audio CD version for kids who prefer to listen than read, and it can be used with a counseling group or classroom so everyone can learn the solution at the same time.

For a more comprehensive treatment of the problem of bullying, read our iParenting Award winning book, Bullies to Buddies: How to turn your enemies into friends. The book deals with just about every bullying situation a kid is likely to encounter. The lessons are also universal, so that adults can use it to learn to solve their bullying problems as well. Each of the four major sections has a detailed quiz, making it appropriate for use as a social skills textbook.

Learn how to handle Cyberbullying, or bullying over the Internet.

Do you get mad when you lose a game? No one likes or respects a sore loser. You can be a winner even when you lose a game! Learn how to be a good sport.

I am available for counseling in my office or over the phone.

For parents and teachers:
You will be surprised to discover that most of the bullying that goes on between kids – whether in school or at home – is actually caused by adults! Almost everything that adults do to make kids stop bullying each other actually makes them do it even more. Our free online manual explains how it happens, and how to dramatically reduce bullying between kids with almost no effort! You can also purchase an updated printed and bound version of the manual, A Revolutionary Guide for Reducing Aggression between Children.

Mental health professionals, educators, and the general public will find lots of my eye-opening, unconventional views and advice on a variety of subjects like racism and prejudice, the victim mentality, politics, warfare, relationship issues, humor, the Golden Rule, Freedom of Speech, and movies in the Newsletters and Articles indexes.

For schools and agencies:
“Victim-Proof Your School” bullying reduction program.

Workshops on Anger Control, Bullying, and other topics!