Monday, October 4, 2010

Stop The Bullies! Author Liz Longo's Tips

Stop The Bullies!
Tips for Parents of Elementary and High School Students
Alleviate the Stress


Dear Parents,

If you are reading this blog, then you are concerned about your kids and the current state of affairs in the social media circuit. Kids don’t have to be afraid of other children; there are ways of coping as a parent and as a child. Below, are suggestions on helping to mitigate the bad behavior of others. This section is written by, artist and author, Liz Longo, whose book, A Bird and its Albatross: A Tale of Renewal is a book of poetry that deals with difficult people and their personalities (while using different types of Australian birds to get her point across). –Thank you, Gina Meyers, publisher for Serendipity Media Group, a full service marketing, promotions, and publishing house specializing in books of inspiration, cookbooks, popular culture, and the whimsical.

To help mitigate bad behavior.........

For elementary to high school students.

Adult intervention of bullying can sometimes be effective but once the pattern of behavior in the environment is set, it can really be like trying to re-wire some kind of heavily jammed circuit panel.
Age appropriate monitoring of “infringing inter-personal behavior” can help. Talking about how to interact in “healthy ways” will offer “healthy leaned behavior”. Some people let children handle their problems themselves. For mathematics problems, that is fine. If personal resolutions are resolved with infringing behavior, the result will fortify the infringing behavior or force. Over time and left unchecked, it can evolve into frequent infringing behavior - bullying. “Boys will be boys” aka “Kids will be kids” should have probably evolved by now into “Boys will be men” and “Kids will grow up” by guiding corrective behavior.
The recipient side of bullying evolve repression and, sometimes, serious depression or. as seen on a few high school and college campuses, vindictive thoughts can turn into full-fledged revenge. So we see, bullying is not kid’s play it is kid’s dismay.
When bad behavior is not corrected, or behavior problems are not guided to better footholds, they can have a manifestation of abusive adult behavior. Remember, many our incarcerated adult had behavioral issues, learning disorders and/or abuse treatment in their childhood. Had these individual been nurtured with today’s parenting knowledge, they could perhaps have lead more contented and more productive lives; it may have lead to a lot less victimization as well.
Early in new group is the best time to for this exercise. Ask the group to outline an Anti-Bullying Alliance. As the youth themselves will be entrenched in youthful dynamics, they need to gain an understanding amongst themselves about classroom and school inter-personal skills. Without building peer alliances, they can become major contributors to problems or passivity to growing problems; they may “opt out” or “opt in” to “infrequent or frequent infringing behavior” themselves. It is important to for them not to see this assignment come and go but become a spring board for working with each other better. Students can be fortified by hearing each other talk about infringing behavior and its ills.

For youth: Create an Anti-Bullying Alliance. Define the word “infringing” and define examples of infringing behavior to them.
Ask parent to discourage infringing behavior at home, between both siblings and adults, to complement school strategies for anti-bullying.
a. Make an outlining about respecting others.
b. How might other students include a student that is becoming isolated?
c. How peers can help other peers ‘back down’ from exhibiting any bullying-type behavior?
d. How can peers help other peers to adjust intermittent bad behavior for more appreciated - better behavior?
e. How can responsible adults actually help make a difference if things start brewing out of control?

For adults: Create an Anti-Discrimination Accord. Use this outline to thwart discrimination of others within your cultural community, yourself and others.
Children get our concepts of other cultures when they talk in generalization about them.
Children may take generalizations as “person specific”; this can create cross-cultural tension that might not otherwise enter a classroom setting.

a. What cultural celebrations have you attended outside of your own? A How did you like it? Were you comfortable?
b. Think about three people you know who perhaps dispelled ‘generalizations’ for you. Write about or discuss why ‘generalization’ cause problems for people we do not know.
c. Why are genders equal?
d. Discuss the variety of foods in different continents. Talk about your local environmental renewals that are needed.
e. Discuss careers and local community goals to get to know one another.
f. Talk to your children about the individual in the culture not ‘generalizations’ of the particular culture.

Liz Longo’s book, A Bird and its Albatross: A Tale of Renewal is available at barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com.
www.lizlongoartspace.com
Liz Longo is a native New Yorker. Her Italian family arrived on Ellis Island in the start of the 1900’s with two simple dollars and not a word of English either. The boat broke down on the way but that’s another story. As a result, Liz very much relates to and appreciates the ever changing population, bringing new smiles, flavors and spices to the city.

Inspired by the New York Public Library’s French Book Art/Livres D’Artists, Artist and Poets in Dialogue exhibit in 2006 of artist collaborations between 1874 and 1999, Liz maintains “The merge of these art forms reveals the beautiful depth of humanity’s soul, we can collaborate peace...a masterpiece, if we are supportive of each other’s simple existence.”

The illustrations for A Bird and It’s Albatross: a Tale of Renewal, features Australian birds, are acrylic on paper by the author. The poet reveals “A bird flies and so too our thoughts; in common, they each seemingly fly aimlessly yet they will eventually land. The Cause and Effect typically thought of for just the physical world, does very much apply to thoughts as they are directed.” We need to think wise and be earth wise.

Contact: serendipitypressinc@gmail.com,

1 comment:

  1. This was just sent to me from NAMI, The National Alliance For Mental Illness.

    The U.S. Surgeon General reports that 10 percent of children and adolescents in the United States suffer from serious emotional and mental disorders that cause significant functional impairment in their day-to-day lives at home, in school and with peers.

    One wonders how the children in Selma are treated - are they being picked on? Bullied?

    Cordova Apartments is an 81 unit complex in Selma that is being developed.

    Selma City Council may not support the units being designated as he feels that they will be a drain on the County Sheriff and Fire department.

    It appears that the City Mayor, Dennis Lujan, may not realize that the National Institute of Mental Health reports that one in four adults-approximately 57.7 million Americans-experience a mental health disorder in a given year.

    Evidently, he doesn't want to extend housing to people with a medical condition. He must not be aware that Brain Disorders are medical conditions!

    Sally Glover
    NAMI Fresno

    ReplyDelete