It’s had to believe, but back to school time is upon us already!\u00a0 Folders and notebooks are on sale everywhere and it seems like every store has a big display of backpacks in every color of the rainbow.\u00a0 \u00a0While some parents are sad to see summer end, others are relieved to see the end of childcare hassles, or can tell their kids are bored and ready for new challenges.<\/p>\n
One thing that not enough parents think about this time of year is bullying.\u00a0 Just today I saw a post a Facebook from a college classmate asking for prayers for her son starting at a new school.\u00a0 Not for his grades, but because he’s been the target of bullying in the past.\u00a0 It broke my heart.\u00a0 It also brought back memories of my childhood and the bullying I endured.<\/p>\n
I’m truly thankful this issue is getting attention now (I assure you it wasn’t in the 80s), but the problem continues.\u00a0\u00a0Many schools do have anti-bullying programs in place.\u00a0 And that’s a good thing.\u00a0 But, much like well-meaning programs like DARE have been shown to have little actual effect on drug use, it doesn’t appear these programs are doing much other than making everyone feel good that their kids’ school is “doing something about it”.<\/p>\n
I’ve written about bullying several times in the past, and I don’t have all the answers.\u00a0 I don’t think anyone does. But as someone who was a victim of consistent bullying for most of my childhood I’m asking you to talk about it.\u00a0 Talk to your kids about it.\u00a0 Talk to your grandkids.\u00a0 Talk to your nieces and nephews.\u00a0 Talk to your neighbor kids.\u00a0 Talk to any kid that will listen.\u00a0 Tell them why bullying is wrong.\u00a0 \u00a0Tell them they can come to you if they are being bullied – and mean it!<\/p>\n
And don’t just talk to kids – talk to adults too!\u00a0 Talk about why brushing it off as “just kids fooling around” is wrong and can be dangerous.\u00a0 Talk about why the standards of changed and why behaviors folks thought were OK even 10 years ago aren’t anymore.\u00a0 If you were bullied, talk about how much it hurt and how it affected you and\/ or how it continues to affect you today.\u00a0 It’s OK to admit that.\u00a0 If you were a bully and have since seen the error in your ways, make sure you talk about that- to kids AND adults!\u00a0 \u00a0Your voice just might be the most important.<\/p>\n
It’s a complicated issue, and like any other difficult problem, it’s going to take the entire village to solve it.\u00a0 Please be an active participant.<\/p>\n
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It’s had to believe, but back to school time is upon us already!\u00a0 Folders and notebooks are on sale everywhere and it seems like every store has a big display of backpacks in every color of the rainbow.\u00a0 \u00a0While some parents are sad to see summer end, others are relieved to see the end of childcare hassles, or can tell… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/6R7KCXBEEE.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}