Izzy Kalman

Director of Bullies to Buddies · School psychologist & psychotherapist

Israel "Izzy" Kalman, MS, is a school psychologist and psychotherapist who has practiced since 1978. Working in schools, he found that the most common complaint among kids was being picked on, and that the standard adult response, stepping in to judge and punish, almost always made the conflict worse. After the 1999 Columbine shooting, when a new anti-bullying field promised to eliminate bullies, he became one of its earliest and most persistent critics, arguing it institutionalized the very responses that escalate conflict and trained a generation toward fragility and a victim mindset.

As director of Bullies to Buddies and creator of the Golden Rule System, his alternative teaches children how not to be a victim by treating the Golden Rule as applied psychology: because people are biologically wired for reciprocity, responding to meanness with calm good humor removes its payoff and defuses it. He is the author of Bullies to Buddies: How to Turn Your Enemies into Friends and lead author of the Be Strong Resilience Program, and he writes the Psychology Today blog Resilience to Bullying. His work has been featured in The New York Times, on Good Morning America, and at TEDx, and his resources live at izzykalman.com and bullies2buddies.com.