Did You Put That Noose Around His Neck?

Would you want your legacy to be that you hurt your child or another person's child because they weren't in an appropriate car seat or seatbelt in an accident?

Would you want your legacy to be that you hurt yourself, your family or someone else's family because you were on the cellphone or texting while driving?

Would you want your legacy to be that you hurt someone else or yourself because you were drinking and driving?

Would you want your legacy to be that you missed all of the warning signs of bullying or you didn't stand up against bullying because you didn't want to see it?

Of course not!

Ask yourself this...

Your Child's Legacy...
Would you want your child's legacy to be that of which they were the one who caused another child to feel so desperate that they took their life because of bullying?

Your Child is Being Mistreated!
Make sure you know whether your child is being mistreated at school. Teach your child to stand up for themselves or help them get out of the situation. It isn't just a kid thing. Listen to your children or look for warning signs like depression, fear of school, anxiety, anger, frustration and lack of friendships.

Your Child is a Bully!
Make sure your child isn't the BULLY. It is NOT just a kid thing. Teach our children to be empathetic (able to put themselves in the shoes of another, feel what they are feeling). You don't want your children to be responsible or feel responsible for the death of another child because they were bullying them. It won't matter whether you think it was their fault or not. What is done is done and it is what it is.

What kind of Role Model Are You Anyway?
Role model as a parent! They learn by example. If you speak unkindly of people or make it acceptable to say mean things or do mean things, then they will emulate that behavior. If you are "bullying" your child, they will imitate that behavior onto others.

Are you a Paper Wrinkler?

Take a clean white piece of paper. A blank canvas filled with potential and hope and creativity. Now crinkle it up. You can still flatten it out and use it but the wrinkles will always be there. The scars from mean words and actions don't go away and are still visible today. It doesn't matter who is doing the wrinkling to who.

There are things I still carry with me that I still fight with that people said to me when I was young.  They are the wrinkles in the paper that have made me feel unworthy and not good enough. I may not have had it as bad as some but even those few words or unspoken words, remain a part of a person for life. I can say now, I don't believe those words but that doesn't change how I felt at the time; humiliated, sad, mad, unworthy, ugly and small.

Did You Put That Noose on That Child?
Something even worse might happen in which you and your child (though you may not think directly) might have to live with the consequence of what bullying can push another child to do whether out of sadness ("Nobody needs me here.") or by revenge ("I'll get them by taking my life. They'll be sorry then.") No matter how you look at it, "the bully" will live with that for the rest of their lives just as if you killed someone texting and driving!

Please do not ignore either side of bullying. Every child deserves to be happy and feel safe. It saddens me to the core to think any child feels afraid or so desperate that they cannot live to their potential.  See both sides! See the flip side... where another point of view makes a better you!

We must fight bullying!





Inspired by an article from Kids Empowered this morning!
http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1411271207