Beyond School Walls using WITS

One of the great programs I use at school is the WITS program. This program can also be used at home.

Adopt the WITS Language at home - remind children to Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, and Seek help when competing for toys, television, who gets to go first, or for more serious problems like hitting, pushing, teasing and threatening.
Watch television programs with your children - talk about the characters' actions and choices in resolving conflicts.
Use WITS Timeouts - A timeout is a great choice for children to Walk away and Ignore a conflict in order to think of a good solution. After a timeout period (one minute per year in age is a good guideline), discuss the conflict with your child alone and then together with a sibling or friend. Ask them to talk about how things got out of hand, how they could have used their WITS to avoid the conflict and how they would do things differently should another conflict arise.
Use WITS to solve your own conflicts - If your children see you using your WITS to deal with problems, they will better understand how WITS strategies can be used in may different situations and environments.
Offer praise when your children use their WITS - Encourage your children to continue using their WITS and to address conflict positively and proactively.

Four Steps for Solving Sibling or Peer Conflicts

Ask what the conflict is about.
Ask the children which of their WITS they could use to solve the conflict. They may need to try all the WITS strategies in order to find a resolution.
Ask what they think might happen if they used their WITS.
Talk about why using their WITS is a better choice than fighting.

In the past, peer conflicts occurred in person. Now more than ever children are experiencing conflicts while communicating with their peers through email, online chats, texting, and other social media. This type of conflict is called Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a type of bullying that takes place electronically using the Internet or cell phones and includes the following behaviours:

*sending nasty or insulting messages over the Internet or on cell phones

*sending or posting gossip, secrets or rumours about a person to damage his or her reputation or friendships

*pretending to be someone else and sending negative messages or posting material to get others in trouble or to hurt their reputation or friendships

*purposely excluding someone from an Internet group, chat room or friend list

*Posting real or digitally altered photographs of someone online without their permission

*Using websites to rate peers' popularity or appearance

What can parents do to get involved?

Keep computers in a shared space in your home - not in a child's bedroom.
Learn everything you can about what your child does online: be familiar with any profiles (Facebook), web pages or electronic journals (blogs) they use.
Know your child's passwords.
Teach your children to never post online or send in a text message anything they wouldn't want the entire world to see or read.
Discuss the importance of treating others with kindness and respect when sending electronic messages, not just in person.
Encourage your child to come to you if someone says or does something on line that makes them uncomfortable.
Children are not always aware of the consequences of their actions, but cyberbullying is an illegal activity. Knowing cyberbullying is and talking about its seriousness may prevent children from engaging in or becoming victims of a silent bystanders to cyberbullying.

WITS: Creating responsive communities for the prevention of peer victimization. Using your WITS to prevent peer victimization. (2011)

If you are in grade 6 and want to become a WITS leader talk to Mrs. Fisher