Picking teams
The same person is picked last every time. Today somebody groans when they are picked.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
A group chat
People are making fun of somebody who is not in the chat. It is not vicious, but it would upset them.
What do you do?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
If you stand there and say nothing, the person being left out cannot tell you disagreed. From where they are, everyone watching looks the same.
Small things work
You do not have to make a speech. Going and sitting with them, or asking them to join your thing, changes it.
Afterwards counts
If you could not say anything at the time, saying something afterwards still matters a great deal to the person.
When to get an adult
If it keeps happening to the same person, that is not a falling-out. That needs an adult, and telling is the right move.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Does It Help?
Sort each action.
Somebody is being left out. Which of these actually change something for them?
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
You did not join in with the unkindness, but you did not say anything. How does it look to the person left out?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
One small thing
- Notice somebody on their own this week.
- Do one small thing — sit near them, or ask them something.
- Notice you did not need to be brave.
Why: The small version works, and finding that out is what makes the bigger version possible later.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Saying nothing looks the same as agreeing.
- Small things — sitting with them, inviting them — count.
- If it keeps happening to the same person, tell an adult.
For the grown-up
The research on bystanders is consistent: one peer acting makes a large difference and it does not need to be a confrontation. Teaching the small options matters more than encouraging courage.
Children reliably overestimate the social risk of a small kindness and underestimate its effect. Naming both explicitly is useful.
The repeated-and-targeted distinction is the bullying line, and it is worth teaching as a signal rather than a label. Children argue about whether something counts as bullying; they can spot "the same person, again" reliably.