Does saying “Just ignore it.” help a child when they are being bullied? While this is advice that has been given for years, the fact is that it does not solve the problem for the target of the bully.
In fact as the child tries to ignore the bully, the damage that is done deep on the inside of the victim may be hidden away, but is really eating away at them, as they develop self doubt, and less and less confidence. So what can we do?
Recently the article, How to Build Confidence in Children & Stop Bullying, explored this subject. After reading this you may want to pass this on to your friends and neighbors, as bullying is a community issue that will only be solved as we work together to improve our society.
The Fourth of July is rolling around again. This is a great time to celebrate with friends, have a cookout, and be patriotic in general. But before the festivities begin, it is important to know how to make sure they are safe. This post includes information on fireworks, barbecues, boating, pool parties, and the sun. It’s only fun until someone gets hurt, so lets try to make sure the fun lasts all through the day injury-free.
Fireworks
The first area of safety concern is the obvious: fireworks. Fireworks are beautiful, fun, and patriotic displays, so we should learn how to incorporate them into our celebrations safely. Here are some things you should not do : Continue reading “4th of July Safety”
One level higher than distraction for coping with stress is AVOIDANCE. As one 14 year old said, “when I don’t want to do something, I go online.” That is probably true for a number of adults too. We can get lost in the online world and even have an excuse saying we are doing research or something else.
When it comes to the higher level of avoidance, procrastination is very high on the list of common ways of putting off something that we do not want to face. Using procrastination on projects, studying or deadlines may be a sign of not wanting to deal with real problems or emotions, and we may find ourselves living with high levels of high anxiety.
Some use sickness as an avoidance strategy. In the USA over 160,000 students miss school, many times using sickness as the excuse to avoid bullies at school. It is not that the illness, stomachache, headache, muscle pain or a whole slew of sympton’s are not real – but the root cause may be stress about something deeper that needs to be dealt with that we are avoiding.
Others use sleep as a way of avoiding stressful situations and challenges. There is no doubt that when we are rested we can do a better job of facing our work, but if we are spending over 12 hours in bed or not leaving our bed on the weekend, it could be a sign of avoiding something. One thing for sure is that sleep will not solve deeper challenges.
But here is the surprise avoidance tactic of all, being super involved and overachieving to overcome negative feelings. Staying busy with many clubs, sporting activities and high end class course work may be a sign of trying to prove to yourself and others that you are good enough. Trying to keep it all together to prove to our else and others that everything is good, can be so difficult and stressful on us that without even noticing things continue to get worse for us.
Avoidance many times leads to seclusion, with your own negative thoughts, that can lead to feeling hopeless and depressed. Feelings like this may lead to the highest level of non-coping, escape. We will talk about the dangers of that in our next article.
Integrity calls for doing what is right even when it is very hard or when there may be results that do not favor yourself. The link below is about a girl that spoke up when it was difficult, because it was the right thing to do, and the results helped her classmate, but led to her being bullied. Here is an excerpt from the story.
He’s a seventh-grader at Tripp Middle School in Turner, active in sports and school plays, friends would say a nice guy. And nearly every day classmates called him “fag,” “faggot” and “queer.” Nearly every day someone punched him, at least one time in the crotch. Nearly every day he was ridiculed, harassed, bullied.
Amanda Fields had never seen anything like it in all of her 13 years.
“Random people. People he doesn’t even talk to would come up to him and say, ‘Hey, fag’ or just kind of use very not good language,” the eighth-grader said.
The boy is a friend of hers. For months she watched his torment and feared for his safety. She worried he’d hurt himself if the harassment got too much. Then, one day this spring, she and a small group of friends told a guidance counselor about all of it. The bullies — more than five, Amanda believes, and less than 15 — were suspended.
Citing student privacy concerns, school administrators refused to talk about the situation or confirm the suspensions. The boy and his parents declined to speak publicly. Other Tripp Middle School students wrote about the incident online, but would not talk about it to the newspaper.
But Amanda would. She agreed to tell the story that started out as the boy’s and has rapidly become her own. Because since she and her friends told the guidance counselor, Amanda’s gotten bullied, too.
Now I share this story because there will come times when we need that kind of courage. Each of us can ask ourselves if we have that kind of courage. Do I have the integrity for the principles, values, ethics, and morals that I stand for, that would make me stand up for what is right, just like Amanda?
Being a good friend is partly about standing up to peer pressure and for what is right.
“If you have integrity nothing else matters, if you don’t have integrity nothing else matters.” Alan Simpson
When we are growing into adulthood, finding our way, one of the most important things that we have is our friends. All of us have those special people in our lives that we love to talk to and hang out with. There is a saying that goes with that that says; “You are who you hang out with.” Choosing our friends has a great affect on our ability to maintaining our integrity to our morals, values and ethics as well as reaching our goals.
Surrounding ourselves with those that will “expect more from us that we do ourselves”, they will always be an inspiration for being our best and in fact even ‘master’ our life. Who are the people that can do that for us and with us? It is going to include those around us that love us and have our best interest at heart, like our parents, friends and other trusted adults who may be an inspiration to you. Those other adults like teachers, coaches, religious mentor, musicians can help us look at things from different viewpoints and keep us on a good track.
But how can we be sure our friends have our best interest at heart?
If at anytime your ‘friends’ ask you to change yourself like your clothes, language, values or morals, or to do other things to fit in with them you may need a new group of friends.
If at anytime your ‘friends’ ask you to do drugs with them, steal, fight, treat others mean, you may need to find a new group of friends.
If at any time you feel like you are being used, manipulated or changed from who you are, you may need to find a new group of friends.
If you feel like your life is out of control, boxed in, not allowed to have other friends or you are not reaching the goals that you have written down, you may need a new group of friends.
Surround yourself with a support system that you can rely on and that shares your morals, values and ethics and you will be much more likely to keep your integrity to yourself.
If someone were to ask you what your personal goals are would you be able to tell them? Even more than that, have you written your goals down so that you can review them regularly? Doing so will have an impact on your ability to stay true to yourself, your values, morals and ethics.
We all know that a goal is only a goal if you have written it down and hopefully told others that you are working to accomplish your goals. Otherwise it is just a dream, something in your head that you think about from time to time. But when you write it down, carry it with you, read and think about it in the morning when you start the day and reflect on them at the end of the day – then they are real goals.
If you know your goal is to have a certain GPA, to be on a particular sports team, to reach certain education level, it will be much easier to resist negative peer pressure and keep your eye on your study habits and physical habits of eating and exercise. Steven Covey called it “begin with the end in mind”.
Take the time to write down your long term goals, and take it one step further and write out a mission statement for yourself. A mission statement is simply a bit of writing stating the values you want to live by, what you believe in and your goals for living your life. Here is one link I found that will give you some steps to writing your own personal mission statement.
Your writing of goals and a mission statement does not have to be long or real wordy. It can be as long or short as you feel like making it. It may change as you grow and that is OK, just be sure it reflects who you are in your quest to live your life with integrity.
Does saying “Just ignore it.” help a child when they are being bullied? While this is advice that has been given for years, the fact is that it does not solve the problem for the target of the bully.
