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Posts tagged Friendship & Other Weapons
7 Skills Parents Can Teach Their Kids for Standing Up to Bullies
13 years
Click here to check out this article, posted on the website Parents Are Important, featuring 7 skills parents can teach their kids, for standing up to bullying.
http://www.parentsareimportant.com/2011/12/7-skills-for-teaching-your-child-to.html
Girls Not as Nice as Sugar and Spice
013 years
Check out this news story from “across the pond:” Friendship & Other Weapons is featured in an article in the Irish Independent newspaper!
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/parenting/girls-not-as-nice-as-sugar-and-spice-2947208.html
What Parents Need to Know to Protect Their Children from Bullying
48413 years
With just 3 days left before the publication of Friendship & Other Weapons, please check out this HuffingtonPost article on helping kids develop a positive future orientation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/signe-whitson/coping-with-bullying_b_1089911.html
Turning Bystanders Into Heroes
013 years
Try this activity to help kids understand how important their role as a bystander–er, HERO, is in a bullying situation.
Give a child 5 wooden craft sticks.
Ask him to write his name on the first one. Then, tell him to break the stick. The task should be easy.
Emphasize that on our own, we are breakable.
Next, ask each child to write down the names of three people who they know they can count on for friendship and support, on three of the remaining sticks. It can be a parent, family member, friend, or even a pet.
On the remaining craft stick, ask the child to write something that they are good at, such as a sport, art, or even being a good friend to others.
Have the child stack his four sticks, one on top of the other, then challenge him to again try to break the sticks. This time, the task should be impossible.
When I do this activity with kids, usually in schools or troop settings–the expressions on the their faces as they realize the strength of the stacked sticks is priceless every time. I know my point has been made. But I say it anyway:
“When you support one another, and have confidence in your own abilities, you become unbreakable. Keep these craft sticks as a reminder of how strong you truly are!”
My other reminder/mantra to kids, when we talk about bullying and bystanding, is that it is never OK to do nothing about bullying. I have kids repeat the phrase. I encourage them to shout it. Sometimes, we see if the whole building can hear us! I want kids to remember this truism.
This week, in light of the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University, it seems especially important.
For more ideas and activites to help kids cope with bullying, please check out Friendship & Other Weapons: Group Activities to Help Young Girls Cope with Bullying, available November 15, 2011.
Great Stop-Bullying Exercise for School Counselors & Teachers
013 years
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up, but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said… they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bullies another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home. Copy and paste if you would like to stop bullying.
Girl Scouts Know How to Be Friends Indeed!
91913 years
This morning, I had the GREAT honor and pleasure of doing a workshop for about 120 Girl Scouts and their moms (ages 5-11), based on some of the lessons and activities in Friendship & Other Weapons. We focused on specific ways that the girls can become allies to someone who is being bullied both before, during, and after bullying situations. In less than 10 minutes, the amazing girls came up with over 60 ways to be a friend to someone who is being bullied! They also learned that:
It is never OK to do nothing about bullying!
Here are a few of the “How to Be a Friend” and “Stop Bullying” posters they left with me to share with you. Please check the Bullying in Elementary School link to see more and to find out how to schedule a Friendship & Other Weapons workshop for your group of girls.
How Friendship & Other Weapons Came to Life
15913 years
This morning, an interviewer asked me how the idea for Friendship & Other Weapons came to be. Thought it was worth sharing with you as well…
My previous book, How to Be Angry, started with the fundamental premise that anger is OK; its 15-session curriculum is all about giving children, tweens and teens specific assertive skills to express their anger in constructive, relationship-building ways. After writing the book, it became obvious to me that there is a large group of young people who are shut out from this basic presupposition that anger is a normal, natural human experience. Millions of young girls in the United States grow up immersed in a social universe in which “being angry” is equated with “being bad” or, at best, not “being nice.” (more…)
From “Happy to Be Me” to Insecurity
013 years
I was a big fan of Sesame Street as a kid and am a bigger fan now, as a Mom. Check out how the show is approaching the problem of bullying with young children–focusing on prevention (where we have a prayer) rather than relying on intervention (where we constantly swim upstream). LOVE it!
http://www.shapingyouth.org/?p=17182
Thinner, Sexier, Hotter: 3 Ways to Help Your Daughter Resist Media Pressures
19413 years
How many times have you heard your daughter singing along to a popular song on the radio and innocently belting out the kind of lyrics that would otherwise get her sent to her room? In the moment, you believe (desperately want to believe!) that she is unaware of the innuendo and unaffected by its explicit content. But messages embedded in song lyrics, along with video imagery, and advertising influence do have an impact on the ways girls think about themselves and their relationships with others. Without having to resort to a full-on pop music ban or complete shunning of media, you can help your daughters-and other young girls-become aware of media messages that violate values and degrade girls.
Please check out my article at Huff Post for ideas on talking to girls about media pressures:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/signe-whitson/thinner-sexier-hotter-3-w_b_1007496.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1751110,b=facebook
Miss Representation: How Girls are Influenced by the Media
123413 years
Wow. Some things you know intuitively, but you don’t take the time to consider how astounding they are until someone puts all of the pieces together like this filmmaker did. In Friendship & Other Weapons, parents and professionals have three chapters devoted to helping kids examine media influences and pressures, knowing that awareness can build resistance.
Please check out this amazing short film–with your daughter!