Break the Silence, Save a Life

The schools have started again and hundreds of first graders are out there again. Bullying is still, even in our smart society, a huge issue in schools. How to teach kids about bullying, what it is, how much it hurts and how it affects people even school is way in the past..?  

A teacher had a pretty effective way to approach the issue. She gave the children, a blank peace of white paper, each had one. The teacher asked the kids to look closely at the paper, how clean and white it is and then to make it a ball, twist it, turn it, fold it, kick it and step on it - no tearing apart though. After the beating up was done, she asked the class to each open their paper as straight as possible and say "I'm sorry". Then she told the class to look at the paper how grumbled, hurt and dirty it was and that that would be exactly what the bullied has gone through. And even though you say "I'm sorry", it did not and will not make the marks go away.

The delusion that beauty is goodness.

“Why do you want to eat healthy?”

 “So you don’t get fat,”

“How do you feel about people who are overweight?”

“I feel sad about them.”

These are answers from 5-8 year old girls. Five to eight. The number of eating disorder hospitalizations for kids under age 12 has more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, according to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old are worried about being fat. In the fact, we “allow” little girls being injected with Botox, being alright with the concept of 10-year-old girls made up to look like a sexy adults posing for cameras and in front of a live audience with their cute dresses. We are constantly making everything be about the way someone looks so where is the surprise that younger and younger kids turn out to feel sick with this society?  Photographing a pre-pubescent girl topless with make-up and heels isn’t edgy. It’s wrong. When you learn from a very young age that sexiness is valued and best, this message is engrained in your brain for the long haul. Studies have demonstrated time and time again that viewing sexualized images can have a lasting effect on young girls. 

The American Psychological Association found that viewing sexualized images promotes “appearance and physical attractiveness” as key values for young girls and was also linked to low self-esteem, eating disorders, and depression. That’s for viewing sexualized images. What if you’re the subject of the sexualized images? Girls should learn that their value comes from what’s on the inside rather than high heels, make-up, expensive clothes and the perfect sultry pout. They even have pole dancing classes for three year olds… Seriously, excuse me, but what the hell. What did I do when I was three? Definitely did not attend to pole dancing classes! I did what every kid did when we still had some sense in our heads. I ran around the fields and roads, took a peak under every rock and behind the trees, held butterflies in my hands, chased all kind of animals just to have a closer look, climbed to the trees and fell down, ate myself sick with candy and enjoyed being carefree when I had the chance. What went wrong in the last 20 years? 

Why are we doing this to our children?

 (Related articles from Care2, here, here and here)

: Do You REALLY want your 3 year old to do this? :

: Necessary? :