College of the Canyons’ Early Childhood Education Department, in collaboration with the city of Santa Clarita, is scheduled to hold a workshop on Jan. 9 dealing with how to empower children and stand up to bullying.
“The real focus is not so much on what bullying is,” said Cindy Stephens, chair of the Early Childhood Education Department. “It’s about how to empower victims of someone who is teasing or bullying. We’re also going to look at the differences between bullying and teasing.”
Stephens, who is also the program director for the Foster and Kinship Education program, will instruct this workshop and two others this month.
Funded through the Foster and Care Kinship Education program within the department, the class will give guests tactics on how children should not feel victimized and how to brush off insensitivity.
“There are expectations to grow up faster,” she said. “Children do not have the standards to negotiate or of impulse control, the social skills to succeed.”
Along with a presentation featuring the video “How to Make a Bully (From Scratch),” Stephens said she hopes the lessons in this class grow beyond the COC campus.
“It’s the responsibility of society and the schools to protect what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate, what’s kindness and what’s not,” she said. “We need to model that.”
Held in Room B of the Early Childhood and Education building, the class is free and will begin at 6:30 p.m. and go on for two hours. The class is open to all adults, particularly parents, students and those interested in parenting classes.