(Cheerful piano music begins)
♪ You are the best you the world will see ♪
♪ Come along now and share you with me ♪
♪ Let's learn something new and share feelings too ♪
♪ 'Cause these are the things to do to be the best you ♪
(cheery music)
- Hi Possum and hello friends.
- Oh, hello Auntie Lena.
- Ooh, how are you doing today Possum?
You sound a little down.
- Well, I'm mad Auntie Lena,
do you remember when we talked about bullying?
- I do.
We talked about how everyone has the power to take a stand
and say no, or stop when they're being bullied
or mistreated.
- Mhhm, but it's not working this time.
They won't listen to me.
- Well, who's not listening to you Possum?
- My friend, Raven.
They're being mean to me at school.
Sometimes they make jokes about me and keep touching my fur
even though I told them to stop.
- Well, I understand why you're mad Possum.
Being bullied is hurtful,
especially when it's coming from a friend.
I'm proud of you for telling me.
- Oh, you are?
- Of course.
Talking to an adult
when someone is being bullied is important.
We wanna help you come up with solutions and feel safe.
- But why would someone be a bully anyway?
- Well, there are a lot of reasons.
Sometimes people who bully feel left out and need a friend.
They may have a problem at home
or don't know how to appreciate
everyone's unique differences, including their own,
so they put others down to feel better about themselves.
- That's not fair.
- No it's not Possum,
and I know firsthand how frustrating that is.
- What do you think I should do Auntie Lena?
- Well, let's ask my friend, Mr. Joe Brooks.
He wrote a book all about this called
"The Bully Needs a Friend".
Let's listen with our friends at Burien Library.
- Hi friends. - Hi friends.
My name is Mr. Joe.
- And my name is Rumi.
- And we are here today at Burien Library.
We're going to read to you today "The Bully Needs a Friend".
Written by myself, Mr. Joe, illustrated by Ari G. Sun.
"At the school I go to,
there's a bully who doesn't have a friend.
He bullies all the kids in class,
but he bullies me all the time."
- [Rumi] "Taking my toys, playing tricks on me,
and taking my lunch money.
That bully's trouble."
- [Mr. Joe] "Sometimes I cry at school,
but most times I cry at home
because it's embarrassing to cry in front of my classmates."
- [Rumi] "That bully drives me crazy."
- [Mr. Joe] "Sometimes I'm scared to go to class
in fear of what the bully could do to me.
I'm scared of being pushed and stuffed into my locker.
I'm scared of the bully attacking me and hurting me.
Like a cat being chased by a dog
I'm scared of the bully."
- [Rumi] "That bully is a terror."
- [Mr. Joe] "My parents sometimes
can't make me lunch for school,
so they give me a whole $5 for lunch and a chocolate milk.
Mmmm, mmm, my favorite.
When I have my chocolate milk for lunch
I always have a great day.
Until one day the bully stole my chocolate milk
from my lunch tray and walked away."
- [Rumi] "That mean ole bully."
- [Mr. Joe] "I said, "Hey you bully.
Why'd you take my milk? I paid for that."
The bully said, "What milk? You mean this milk?"
I said, "Yeah, that milk. My chocolate milk."
The bully opened my chocolate milk right in front of me
and drank it all."
- [Rumi] "That evil bully."
- [Mr. Joe] "I thought fighting the bully
would be the only way to get that evil bully
to leave me alone.
I've seen movies and learned that sometimes
I have to fight for my respect, so I did.
As that mean ole bully turned and walked away laughing,
enjoying my chocolate milk,
I balled my fist as tight as I could,
grabbed that bully's shoulder with my other hand,
saw that evil grin and-"
- [Rumi] "Whack, bam, boom.
I hit that bully with all my might."
- [Mr. Joe] "The bully fell to the ground in slow motion
it seemed like.
My eyes lit up with excitement,
and classmates cheer me on
and hoist me up on their shoulders cheering-"
- [Rumi] "Hip hip hooray."
- [Mr. Joe] "An amazing feeling to feel,
only if it really happened.
Dreams of beating up the bully.
I knew better than to fight and get in trouble
because violence is not the answer for anyone's problems.
My family taught me that."
- [Rumi] "That lucky bully."
- [Mr. Joe] "When I got home,
I decided I would tell my parents at dinner
about that bully who has been bothering me every day
and driving me crazy.
Before we sat down for dinner,
I hugged my mom and hugged my dad,
hoping I could squeeze the answers I needed from them
to stop that bully from bothering me.
Sometimes it's good to talk to the parents around."
- Mhhm.
[Rumi] "What do I do mom? What do I do dad?"
- [Mr. Joe] "When someone is mean to me. I said.
They looked at each other and asked me,
"Does the bully have any friends?"
I said, "No. The bully doesn't have friends. He's a bully."
My dad put his hand on my shoulder and said,
"That's why you have a bully.
They don't have a friend.
They're alone and upset.
No one has cared for them.
There are a lot of people who seek attention
in ways that don't make sense.
You have to be kind and caring, even though it may hurt."
My mom then said,
"You never know how to walk in someone's shoes
until they let you wear them.
Try being a friend to the bully,
and I bet you they'll leave you alone
and you might have a new friend when this is all over."
You think that's right?
- Yeah.
- Yeah sometimes that might work.
Trying to be peaceful and understanding.
- Yeah.
- There's a word for that.
Do you know what that word is? You ever heard of empathy?
- No. - No?
So "empathy" is a word
that we should always carry with us every day.
It's feeling and understanding where someone is coming from
if they're having problems.
"I thought that was the worst idea I'd ever heard.
My parents don't want me to defend myself with force,
they want me to beat the bully with kindness.
So weird.
But they're my parents and they've always been there for me.
So what do I have to lose?"
- [Rumi] "That bully is gonna kill me. Oh no."
- [Mr. Joe] "I go to sleep after dinner feeling the worst.
Instead of dreams of victory,
it's dreams of defeat and lifelong embarrassment.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Tomorrow is now today.
I'm ready to go to school and face my nemesis."
- [Rumi] "The big bad bully."
- [Mr. Joe] "I walk into school on high alert,
no bully in sight.
I walk down the hall to my locker and still,
no bully in sight.
Then like a magic trick,
there's the bully walking down the middle of the hallway,
elbows out, and everyone dodging them.
The bully approaches me,
and before he can put a finger on me,
I offer the bully my chocolate pudding pack
and ask if the bully would like to play tetherball
at recess with me.
Talking as fast as I can
and grimacing for the potential fist coming my way,
to my surprise, the bully said-"
- [Rumi] "I love chocolate and tetherball."
- [Mr. Joe] "My jaw dropped to the floor in amazement
and a sigh of relief escaped my nervous body.
I couldn't believe the bully just wanted a friend."
- [Rumi] "My parents were right.
My parents are awesome."
- [Mr. Joe] "Out of curiosity, I asked the bully,
"Why are you so mean?
Why do you treat us so badly?"
The bully said, "No one ever invites me
to play with them for recess
or ask me to sit with them at lunch.""
- [Rumi] "I feel left out and mad."
- [Mr. Joe] "I extended my hand and said-"
- [Rumi] "That changes today."
- [Mr. Joe] "The bully grabbed my hand
with the force of a thousand elephants and said,
"Thanks for inviting me to play.""
- [Rumi] "Now the bully has a friend."
- What'd you think?
- That was really fun.
- Do you think that, you know, if you ever had a friend
who had a bully, you kinda know
how to maybe help them out with it?
- Yeah.
What would you do?
- Tell them to be nice to the bully.
- Yeah. See if that works.
Thank you Rumi for joining me today
and helping me read the book.
- Thank you too, Mr. Joe.
- Bye friends.
- Thank you for sharing that story with me Auntie Lena
and I'm glad the boy could become friends with his bully,
but Raven is being really mean,
and I don't wanna be friends with someone who's mean.
- It's okay to feel that way Possum,
but you and Raven have been friends for a long time.
Do you want to try a couple of things that might help?
- Oh like what, Auntie Lena?
- Well, first tell me this.
How do you walk around at school?
Do you walk around with your head held down
towards the ground or held up high?
- Oh, I don't know.
I never thought about it before.
- Then let's think about it.
Try holding your head up high and see how it feels.
Keep your paws poised and repeat after me.
I am special.
- I am special.
- I am kind.
- And I'm proud to be me.
- How did that feel Possum?
- Well I am proud to be me Auntie Lena
but how does holding my head up high
stop someone from bullying me?
- It shows confidence and self-respect.
With our heads held high, we see who's coming our way
and remember how we deserve to be treated.
- Holding my head up like this
kinda makes me feel like a king.
- Exactly. It's like wearing a crown.
- Oh I wish I was wearing a crown, Auntie Lena.
Ooh, can we make one with our friends?
- That's a fun idea.
And I know just the person who can show us how to make one.
Let's visit with Mr. Ari.
The illustrator of "The Bully Needs a Friend"
at Child Strive in Everett.
- Hello friends. This is Mr. Ari.
I'm here at Child Strive in Everett,
and today we're gonna make a crown.
We're gonna keep our head up
in the face of any circumstance, bullying,
anything that can bring us down.
We can always keep our head up high
with our own custom made crown.
And to make a crown today we have a couple of materials.
We have our paper, we have our scissors,
we have some nice markers, we have stickers,
and we have our tape.
So to get started,
first I'm going to make a zigzag pattern just like this.
Up, down, up, down, up, down.
Have you ever been bullied before?
Have you ever seen anyone been bullied before?
Sometimes it doesn't feel good,
but through our thoughts and actions,
we have the power to have our own experience.
And when we make our crown,
it's like we choose to be strong and happy.
What I'm going to do is I'm gonna take my two pieces.
I like to flip them over like this
so you don't see the markers, the marker marks.
And what I'm going to do next
is I'm going to take a piece of tape
and I'm gonna tape these two pieces together.
So the next step that we're gonna do
is we're going to customize it.
By customizing it and putting our stickers,
we make it original, we make it unique
because we're all unique.
Even the bully, even the bullies that you know
are causing harm to others,
they're all going through something.
And sometimes the best way to work with the bully
is to try to understand what they're going through,
maybe offer them a crown,
maybe seeing how they would decorate theirs.
How I'm doing mine is I'm using these bubbles,
and now I wanna take some of these markers
and do some custom work on there as well.
There's a lot of different ways that we can make patterns
to express how we want to wear our crowns.
It's important to know that everyone's crown is different.
We're all unique and we're all special.
There's a lot of different shapes that we can use.
Straight lines, curvy lines, wobbly lines.
Okay, I think I'm gonna try it out.
Okay.
When we have it here we're gonna take a piece of tape,
tape this together and here we go.
How does that look?
You can keep your head high with your crown.
Wear your crown every day, and thank you very much friends.
I'll see you again soon. Bye bye.
- Do you like my crown Auntie Lena?
- I sure do.
You're holding your head up higher already.
It's a good way to feel
when we have to stand up for ourselves.
- Oh, but it's so hard.
- I know it is Possum, but we can do hard things.
The first step is to feel confident.
When you're feeling confident, it's easier to set boundaries
and tell someone how you wanna be treated.
What is something that you could say to Raven?
- Oh, well, maybe-
Maybe I could say,
"Raven, when you're mean to me I don't wanna be friends."
- That's a clear boundary Possum.
Raven is being mean by calling you names
and touching your fur,
and that's not how you wanna be treated.
If setting that boundary doesn't work,
then you can ask an adult at school to help.
- But, oh, I don't wanna get Raven in trouble.
- Of course you don't,
but you deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.
- Oh, Auntie Lena, it makes me sad
to think about Raven still bullying me
and us not being friends anymore.
- I understand. It's not an easy situation.
It's possible that Raven could continue to be mean,
but they could also decide to change.
- Oh, I hope they decide to change.
I like being friends with Raven,
and we have so much fun playing soccer together.
- I know you do, Possum.
And speaking of fun, how about we take a break
and have some fun with our friends?
- Yeah. What should we do?
- I'm not too sure.
So let's go back to Child Strive
and see what ideas Mr. Ari has.
- Hi friends. - Hi friends.
- I'm Mr. Ari.
- I am Emory.
- And we're here at Child Strive in Everett,
and we're gonna talk about "The Bully Needs a Friend"
and we're gonna do some jingles too.
- Why'd you choose this book?
- Ah, that's a good question.
For this book I chose it because I did the illustrations.
- Oh. - Yeah.
Meaning I did all the artwork.
And my friend, Joe, he came up with the story
and we came together to create something really special.
Are you familiar with bullies?
And have you seen anyone been bullied before?
- No, not really.
- It's something that some of us go through.
It's something that I went through
and one of the ways that, well,
me and you know, some friends with me and Joe,
we talked about is one of the best ways
is to address bullying is with compassion or with empathy.
Empathy can bring us together, right?
And another thing that can bring us together is music.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Sometimes music can help us
when we're going through these things.
Okay. I'm gonna show you.
(drum thudding)
I wanna add some lyrics on top of it too.
So check this out.
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
What do you think about that?
- I think that's cool. That's good.
- It's cool? It's cool? It's a nice rhythm?
You think that people will like it, you know?
- Yeah.
- Okay. Okay.
Do you wanna try it?
- Okay, sure. - Okay.
- Here you go.
You got the power.
So maybe just try the rhythm first and see how it feels.
(drum thudding)
Boom, boom, boom, boom. (drum thudding)
Hey, there it is.
Boom, boom, boom, boom. (drum thudding)
Yeah.
(drum thudding)
You wanna try it with some lyrics too?
- Okay.
- Okay, let's do it.
1, 2, 1, 2, 3.
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Yeah, we're getting somewhere.
This is nice. This is nice.
I think we can try another thing.
When I say "be" you say "kind".
Be kind.
What do you think about that?
- Okay.
- I think what would be great now Emery,
is if we run the whole song from the top,
we'll do the drum pattern with the jingle,
and then we'll do the calm response after that.
Does that sound good?
- Yeah.
- Okay. Let's do it.
1, 2, 1, 2, 3.
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
Again.
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ The bully's here. ♪
(drum thudding)
♪ He needs a friend. ♪
Yeah, yeah, when I say be you say kind.
♪ Be ♪ ♪ Kind ♪
Yeah.
- Thanks for teaching me that Mr. Ari.
- Thank you Emory for playing the drums with me,
doing the jingle and checking out the books.
And thank you friends for joining us today.
- Bye friends. - Bye friends.
- So Possum, how do you feel
about setting your boundaries with Raven now?
- Well, maybe a little better.
I'm glad you showed me
how to be confident when Raven's being mean
and well, next time I see them, I'll hold my head up high
and tell them how I want to be treated.
- And remember, even though it might not be easy,
we can do hard things.
Sometimes friends don't treat friends very well
and they need to be told when they're being hurtful.
- I know. I hope things will go back to normal.
- Me too. Let me know how it goes.
I care about you very much,
and you can always talk to me about how you're feeling.
- Oh thank you, Auntie Lena. I will.
- You're welcome Possum.
And friends, thank you for taking the time to look,
listen, and learn with us today.
Remember, you are the best you that the world will ever see.
- Bye for now.
- Bye bye.
(cheery music)
Please stay tuned after the credits
for Auntie Lena's parent tip.
(cheery music)
- [Presenter] Brought to you by public health,
reminding you to keep your family's protection strong
with updated COVID vaccines.
Resources and information available
at kingcounty.gov/vaccine.
(soft music)
- Finding out that our little ones are facing difficulties
with friends can be upsetting.
Poet L.R. Knost says,
"When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions,
it's our job to share our calm, not join their chaos."
As caring adults,
they deserve our loving attention and nurture.
We must enlist our own self-control to listen
and help them walk through their feelings
and possible solutions.
Acting out roles
or role playing like Auntie Lena did with Possum
is one way to get your little one
to think about what they might say
or do if they're facing a bully.
Practicing role play can feel silly,
but it's a good way to prepare
for different types of situations.
And most importantly,
it builds self-confidence and self-efficacy.
The tools your child needs to remember
how they deserve to be treated,
and that no one, not even a bully,
can take away their crown.