Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Love Our Children - Stop Bullying

I’m in a local playgroup.  It’s a great group where the women all know that they can come together for support, advice, to share in good news and bad - not to mention bring our kids together to play and interact.  Recently a friend came to the group with a heartbreaking problem.  Her daughter is being picked on - bullied - at school.  Other children are making fun of her because she is different than them.  This mom wanted advice - what can she do to help her daughter, what can she do to ensure that her daughter comes to HER for support?  While we all tried to help with what advice and support we could, it’s hard to know exactly how to handle bullies.  
One of my own children has been bullied at different times.  In kindergarten, while riding the bus, he was taunted, hit, kicked, even bitten by a 4th grader.  He didn’t even come to me and tell me until it got so bad that he was crying, bruised and had just had enough.  He’s made fun of quite often by peers because he stutters, even by “friends.”  He has an amazing personality and the biggest heart you could imagine.  He always fights for the underdog and he sticks up for other kids that are being bullied - but he doesn’t know how to stick up for himself when it happens to him.  

It was recently brought to my attention that April 2nd was National Love Our Children Day.  While that day has passed, I think every day is a good one to focus on our children!  Love Our Children USA is a national nonprofit group that focuses on the prevention of all forms of violence and neglect against children.  They teach effective parenting solutions and create programs that empower positive changes in parenting and family attitudes.  Love Our Children USA has an amazing website that gives information for parents as well as kids on how to deal with bullies and abuse.  
It is so important to educate our kids while they are young!  While it’s extremely heartbreaking to see our little ones be bullied, can you imagine how you’d feel if you found out YOUR child was the bully?!  We have GOT to put an end to this.  As parents, it is our job to foster a respect for others - no matter how different they may be.  As a country, the US especially is such a melting pot, yet we thrive on pointing out someone else’s “weaknesses,” usually in an attempt to make ourselves feel better.  How can we stop?
Here are a few sites that I think can help.  

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing we just found out our first grader is being harrassed (buillied just makes it sound like teasing to some people we found) by a 5th grader... poor gental kid didnt say saything because he 'did want the kid to get in trouble' i cant help but wonder what it would feel like to be that childs mother... thanks for posting this!

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