Soul Shoppe‘s work is made possible by donors and partners who care deeply about the young people in their communities! We can’t do this work without you. Support our work in classrooms and on playgrounds across the nation by donating here.
Hello!! Missing you all!! Thinking of you, and hoping you and your loved ones are all well and safe at home.
• Normally at this time of year, you would be having your End-of-Year Peacemaker Party with your Principal and Peacemaker Liaisons. Since that is not possible this time, we Peacemaker Trainers have a little something for you, by video instead. Whether you had Dara, Arek or Jill as your Peacemaker Trainer this year, all three of our vidoes are for ALL of you, below…and your entire family, too! 🙂
• Also, for those of you who don’t know about this fun thing happening…we invite you and your whole family to join the awesome weekly games and contests that are going on at SOUL SHOPPE LIVE. Join HERE. We hope you love!
Arek shares stories and useful home practices for CHECKING IN WITH FAMILY, to help everyone get along wonderfully well.
Jill and some adorable friends share the benefits of DROPPING YOUR STORY, to help people (and puppets!) get back to peace and fun at home.
Before you watch the next video, grab some paper and things to draw and color with! Dara shows how to make your very own PEACEMAKER CELEBRATION CERTIFICATE, plus how to set up a Peacemaking Station or Peace Corner for the whole family to use and enjoy.
Whatever grade you are in, whatever peacemaking you have done, and whatever peace you continue to bring into the world, we are so proud of each and every one of you. You have worked so hard, with so much courage, dedication and love. You make this world a more beautiful, happy and peace-filled place for everyone.
Thank you, Peacemakers!!!!!
Dara, Arek, Jill and the entire team at Soul Shoppe
Hello from home! Thinking of you all, and hoping you and yours are doing well. Missing you so much, and so grateful to you for making this such an important and special Peacemaker Year for everyone. Now that the world is sheltering in place, Peacemakers are needed more than ever, right in their own families and communities. Thank you for all you have done to make that possible throughout the year at school, and for everyone at home now, as well.
In celebration of you all, all of us Peacemaker Trainers at Soul Shoppe (myself, Arek Bryant and Jill Brittner), have created this thank you email below, complete with end-of-year celebration videos from each of us, to acknowledge the incredible work your Peacemakers have done. Even though it is not possible to have year-end celebrations with Party in A Box at your schools, we hope these videos are fun, engaging and useful for your entire amazing Peacemaker crew!
A couple things to note:
• We designed our videos to shower them with gratitude, and empower them with tools for Peacemaking at home with their families…and we hope you enjoy them too!
• We have also included a link for them to join the weekly activity, games and contest emails with SOUL SHOPPE LIVE. If you and your own families are not yet on the list, you can join HERE. We hope you love!
So looking forward to hearing from you. And, hoping your end of year is wrapping up beautifully, despite these most unusual and challenging times.
From all of us at Soul Shoppe…we love and appreciate you so much.
You are AMAZING!!!!
Dara, Arek, Jill and the entire team at Soul Shoppe
Dear Wonderful Peacemakers,
Hello!! Missing you all!! Thinking of you, and hoping you and your loved ones are all well and safe at home.
• Normally at this time of year, you would be having your End-of-Year Peacemaker Party with your Principal and Peacemaker Liaisons. Since that is not possible this time, we Peacemaker Trainers have a little something for you, by video instead. Whether you had Dara, Arek or Jill as your Peacemaker Trainer this year, all three of our vidoes are for ALL of you, below…and your entire family, too! 🙂
• Also, for those of you who don’t know about this fun thing happening…we invite you and your whole family to join the awesome weekly games and contests that are going on at SOUL SHOPPE LIVE. Join HERE. We hope you love!
Arek shares stories and useful home practices for CHECKING IN WITH FAMILY, to help everyone get along wonderfully well.
Jill and some adorable friends share the benefits of DROPPING YOUR STORY, to help people (and puppets!) get back to peace and fun at home.
Before you watch the next video, grab some paper and things to draw and color with! Dara shows how to make your very own PEACEMAKER CELEBRATION CERTIFICATE, plus how to set up a Peacemaking Station or Peace Corner for the whole family to use and enjoy.
Whatever grade you are in, whatever peacemaking you have done, and whatever peace you continue to bring into the world, we are so proud of each and every one of you. You have worked so hard, with so much courage, dedication and love. You make this world a more beautiful, happy and peace-filled place for everyone.
Thank you, Peacemakers!!!!!
Dara, Arek, Jill and the entire team at Soul Shoppe
Many schools already have some excellent anti-bullying and community-building practices, but these can be overly compartmentalized, occurring only at specific times of day. Emotions are happening all the time!
Here are some things educators can do to fill the gaps:
Create multiple opportunities for class meetings or class moments where everyone has a voice and everyone gets to be seen.
Create school structures so that adults at our schools are easily available for young people, where they have the time and the emotional space to give young people their full attention and empathy.
Create time for teachers and adults at school to reflect, to notice if kids are being excluded and to work to create inclusion throughout the day.
Build the critical skills of empathy and community within our kids.
Model empathy and self-management skills. Kids learn from the example of the adults around them.
At some point in our childhoods, most of us have been bullied. If not bullied ourselves, we’ve witnessed someone else getting bullied. Some of us have even been the bully. So how can we say “there’s no such thing as a bully”? It’s a radical proposition, and it’s one of the core assumptions we make at Soul Shoppe.
Over the years, we’ve had many opportunities to interact with children who were identified as bullies. When we were able to get beneath the behavior, to really connect with them, we saw every time that there was a need not getting met. Something was going on – a parent was ill, parents were divorcing, violence in the environment – there was a lack of safety and security or some overwhelming event. Children who have to navigate these situations may feel isolated, misunderstood, afraid and lonely. The bullying behavior meets a small piece of their need, even if it’s in a negative way. They get attention. They have power. Their actions matter. Or maybe it just feels good to have someone else feel afraid and upset too.
When we look underneath any bullying situation, there is always a young person with big feelings and they don’t know what else to do. They have emotions they don’t know how to manage. Bullying is a symptom of a bigger problem, never the root of the problem. And those big emotions didn’t start with them.
There’s no such thing as a bully. There is only a kid who is hurting and needs support. When we label a child a “bully,” we make their behavior define who they are. We start to look at and interact with them as if THEY are the problem, instead of addressing the behavior and where it’s really coming from. Changing how we view the behavior is one of the ways we can stop bullying at its roots. We can give kids tools, time and space to manage their emotions. We can show them how to listen to and have empathy for one another.
Our Free To Be assembly is a great way to introduce these practices into schools. Educators who want to deepen their anti-bullying and community-building practices can get a few ideas here. And finally, check out Soul Shoppe founder vicki! Abadesco’s Tedx Talk to find out what happened when one class “bully” was given a chance to be heard.
