School: It’s a Jungle Out There

Birmingham, MI (March 21 2017) — Surviving the Social Jungle (501c3) is a conference that takes a fresh approach to managing unfriendly peer behavior and preventing bullying, with specialized tracks for kids, adults and professional educators.

According to research, more than 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day because of bullying and 17% of American students report being bullied 2 to 3 times a month, or more within a school semester.

“This is an epidemic,” said Kimber Bishop-Yanke, chair of the conference and founder of Kids Empowered. “Students, parents and educators need specific tools in order to understand how to deal with peer conflict and how to prevent bullying.”

At the conference, kids will learn practical skills and strategies for dealing with mean behavior before it turns into a bullying situation, and the “do’s and don’ts” of being a friendly classmate and standing up for themselves.

Also, the kids’ tracks are engaging stations in which the kids learn the lessons. They will participate in fun activities like Verbal Judo, Judo Moves, Mindfulness, a photo booth and games.

Adults including, parents, teachers, school administrators, and camp counselors will learn the latest research on social rejection, practical advice on how to recognize and help kids manage mean behavior and bullying in school, extra-curricular activities, as well as techniques to empower students and advice on how to best intervene when needed.

The conference is being held on Saturday, April 22 at Seaholm High School in Birmingham located at 2436 West Lincoln. Details of the conference can be found at www.survivingthesocialjungle.c...

Other notable statistics about bullying

● 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4% of the time.

● By age 14 less than 30% of boys and 40% of girls will talk to their peers about bullying.

● Over 67% of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective.

● 71% of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school.

● 90% of 4th through 8th graders report being victims of bullying.

● 1 in 10 students drop out of school because of repeated bullying.

● As boys age they are less and less likely to feel sympathy for victims of bullying. In fact they are more likely to add to the problem than solve it.

● Physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, remains constant.

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Media Contact: Vanessa Denha Garmo 248.830.8605 or vanessa@denhamedia.com