Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts

Student Workshop: Bully Prevention & Healthy Relationships

We are pleased to announce that this summer Balanced Life Skills will be conducting workshops for students on bully prevention with a focus on relationships and friendship.   Each workshop will be gender specific and age specific.

For Today’s Parents:

Creating a Culture of Peace in our Schools and Community

Information every parent should have on what is bullying and why we must not ignore it.  We will discuss the effects on every child, and why children do not tell their parents it is happening.  We will also discuss what to do if your child is the bully, bullied or is a follower.

Dates for this workshop are Monday May 7th or Wednesday May 16th at 6:30 PM

If you are interested please call us at 410-263-0050

Parent workshop will be FREE

For Today’s Girls & Young Women:

It’s not just girls being girls.  It has a name: Relational Aggression

This workshop will be age appropriate  and focus on relational aggression.   The lessons will equip girls with an understanding of the language of peer aggression, including the roles that are played out, and the steps needed to develop healthy, inclusive friendships.  Our goal is to raise awareness about the nature of and the impact of relational aggression on the lives of young women.   This is a great program for girl scout groups from Daisy to Senior & Ambassador.  Here are the dates and age groups for the girls program.

Monday – Wednesday July 9-11  10 AM to 1 PM     Kindergarten and First grade girls and boys combined

Monday – Wednesday July 16-18  10 AM to 1 PM     Second and Third Grade Girls

Monday – Wednesday July 30-August 1  10 AM to 1 PM     Fourth and Fifth Grade Girls

Monday – Wednesday August 13-15  10 AM to 1 PM        Middle School Girls

They will explore how aggression affect their lives, how social norms impact decisions, what is friendship, what makes an effective leader, and digital citizenship.  Each workshop will be $75

For Today’s Boys & Young Men:

Reduce Aggression, Increase Self Empowerment

This workshop will be age appropriate  and focus on relational aggression and bullying.   The lessons will identify the roles of bullying situations, assess the importance of the bystander, determine the positive qualities of friendship and leadership.    This is a great program for boy scout groups from Tiger Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  Here are the dates and age groups for the boys program.

Monday – Wednesday July 9-11  10 AM to 1 PM     Kindergarten and First grade girls and boys combined

Monday – Wednesday July 23-25  10 AM to 1 PM     Second and Third Grade Boys

Monday – Wednesday August 6 – August 8  10 AM to 1 PM     Fourth and Fifth Grade Boys

Monday – Wednesday August 20-22  10 AM to 1 PM        Middle School Boys

They will explore how bullying affect their lives, what does it mean to be a man, what is friendship, what makes an effective leader, and digital citizenship.  Each workshop will be $75

Contact us Today and reserve your spot for any of these workshops.

410-263-0050  or
Send Email

Day 16 in our series talks about the 3 ways we show assertiveness.  This whole series is found on Bully Prevention Partners.  We would like for those interested in creating a culture of peace in our schools and community to join us there as we spread the awareness of bully prevention.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Barbara Bush is quoted as saying, “Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life’s blood. But everyone has something to give.”

No matter how small we believe our contribution is to a person or to a cause, it may be the one small thing needed to make a big difference. We never know who we are going to touch with our gift of a personal treasure, our time or talent, or even a word of thanks. We may know the person or maybe not. It may be in passing that we demonstrate generosity that makes a difference in an individuals day.

Teaching our children from a very young age, by our example, the joy and value of giving will lead them on a path of true happiness. One of the 6 most basic human needs is connection / love, and those are only attainable by not looking at what we are getting – but rather what we are giving.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Each month we define and discuss a word of character development and life skill with all of our students.

This month the word is Self-Reliance and will be defined this way.

Young students: Self Reliance means: “I can do it by myself!”

Older students: Teamwork means: Self trust; relying on your own judgements, powers or abilities

Here are the worksheets for our students:

Self Reliance Project Tiger Tots

Self Reliance Project 5-6

Self Reliance Project 7-12

Self Reliance Project Teens & Adults

If you would like to see how we will deal with this subject with our students please follow our discussions here during the month of September or come in and TRY A CLASS.

All of us must be sure that when we are working with a student who is the target of a bully that they know everything that is listed in this collage of words.  Not sure what it says?  Join us at Bully Prevention Partners for the complete list and more information on what parents, teachers and students can do to create the culture of peace in the classroom.

Today was the first post in a 10 part series for teachers on classroom management.  The idea is to provide help for teachers and parents (parents are teachers too) for helping to eliminate bullying in your classroom or home.  Learning is best done when all students feel safe and secure, and are not afraid of being picked on.

Please join our efforts to create that situation for all students at Bully Prevention Partners.  We are looking to engage teachers, parents and students in our discussion on creating a culture of peace in the classroom.

Do not wait till your son or daughter is the target of a bully.  You can help them now – not to be the target and to have the strength to stand up for themselves and others in bullying situations.   Invite your children’s teachers to visit and contribute to Bully Prevention Partners.  Together we can make a difference.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Have you ever seen or been on a team that just clicked, everything went well, even when there were obstacles? It is fun to be on a team like that. Have you ever been on a team that no matter how hard you worked the team never quite gelled and what you hoped to accomplish never quite happened. That can be very discouraging. So what is it that makes the difference in a great team and one that does not reach its potential? How does what we learn help us in our families, our most important team.

Great teams and teams that are fun to be on may not always win. But on great teams, that never seems to persuade them from having a positive attitude. Even when things do not go as planned or hoped for, the members of the team always look on the bright side and are willing to give credit to each other and appreciate the effort that they put into the task at hand.

Great teams display great sportsmanship. No matter if they win or lose, they are fair and kind both to each other and those that they played against. They put forth their best effort and play by the rules, never cheating or lying. Teams that display sportsmanship are willing to compliment others for a job well done instead of bragging, criticizing or making fun of others on or off of their team.

Great teams and teammates will still make mistakes and not do the job they were assigned as well as they wished they had. But instead of trying to find someone else to blame, they quickly acknowledge their mistakes, learn from them and then work on doing better the next time. All of these things are true of teams that we play and work on, but they are also true of our most important team – our family.

In our family we want to display a positive attitude, even when things do not go the way we would have liked or planned. If there is an obstacle, we talk to others in the family, prioritize what our values are, make choices that are best for the team – not just one individual. Great families create a culture of being fair to all and understanding that fairness does not mean you will get your way all of the time. Great families work hard together on projects that meet the values and mission of their family, with everyone contributing what they are able to their projects. They are willing to listen to each other and set their own ego’s to the side for the good of the team.

Developing our values and mission as a family and then working together to meet our goals as a team, teaches our children about teamwork and creates a very close and strong family. If someone were to ask you what is your mission / goals as a family, you want to be able to state it simply and clearly. Having the values spelled out and a mission understood is the first step in creating a great team.

The power of WE can affect our family, our schools, and our community. I hope to use this power in our efforts to bring a culture of peace to our schools for all students. Will you join with me in:

Bully Prevention Partners

Teaching character and life skills to students

In our society even our youngest of children end up on teams involving sports or other activity.  Too often the question we ask is, “How did you do?” or we say, “You did really well today!”  If we want to teach our children about teamwork though we may want to change the words we use, and start very early teaching them about teams and how we can accomplish much bigger goals together than we can as just one person.

All of us including children have been on teams.  Our most important team is our family. When we teach our children that the family is the most important team we are on, we will be helping them to see things from others point of view, empathy. When they go to school they will start to see relationships as not just about themselves, but also get to feel what others might be feeling.  When we take them into the community and there are cleanup projects or feeding the less fortunate, they will begin to understand how together we can make a difference far beyond what we can do as individuals.

What would happen if at home we all made a mess?  Do we expect that one person would be responsible for picking up and cleaning the mess?  If we as a family work together to get things cleaned up, we are teaching our children that teamwork is an important characteristic to our family.  Yes sometimes it takes more time than doing it ourselves, but the lesson of teamwork, empathy, fairness and learning how to share responsibility is a valuable lesson for later in life.