They used to say that it takes a village to raise a child. I don't that is true today like it was then, but I think it still does hold some truth, just in a different way. Every day our news is peppered with stories of violence and school shootings. These stories rock our worlds, especially as parents. We talk about them with terror in our eyes, our voices choked with emotion and our hearts hurting. We eagerly point fingers to the mental health institution in our country, assigning blame, slightly relieved that there is some place to place it.
That's where we are wrong. There's no one place to assign the blame. We are all responsible to some degree. We underestimate the amount of power that develops from feeling loved, accepted and having a support system complete with help when needed. We want blame the parents, the school, the mental health community but we need to blame everyone, all of society, including ourselves.
But it's not too late to do something. It's not too late to stand up and make the changes in your life and your home. It won't undo what's been done, but it may make a difference in what happens tomorrow and that's what we have to focus on now.
As parents, teachers, care givers, family members and friends of children, we must teach them to treat others with love, acceptance and respect. We need to expand this idea to not just their elders, but to their peers, their siblings, and the kid they don't know in a grade or two below them. We need to teach them that we, as people, have an effect on the others around us and it is our responsibility to do what we can to ensure that that effect is a good one. Just as a well times smile can brighten someone's day, a cruel joke made at the cost of another can be devastating.
We need to teach the children in our lives that differences don't make someone less of a person or beneath you, but they are something to embrace and celebrate.These differences are what make the world such an amazing place. They are what drives the world forward and even fuel innovative ideas. Further more, we are different form others around us, too, weather it be in race, ethnicity, economic class, family size, religion, age, gender or diagnosis. With that in mind, who are we to judge and mistreat another because they, too are different?
We need to teach the children of the world that someone who needs help is not one to fear, hate or isolate, but one to help to the best of our ability which may be encouraging them or helping them to find someone more qualified to step in.
And, as adults, is also our job to ensure that these amazing kids around us have ample opportunity to see how it's done through you, because our actions and our words have an effect on them, too. When we allow judgment into our speech, they hear it. They adopt it. When we shrug if off and say that it's not our problem, they, too, undertake a lack of responsibility. When we make excuses and blame others, they have no reason to look at themselves and their actions. We must model a world of love and acceptance. We must celebrate differences and act with respect. We need to show our younger generation how to react to someone you may not like without being cruel or rude, but accepting them for who they are and respecting them as a person, if nothing more.
But that's not where it stops. We need to flip the coin. We need to teach our younger counterparts that it is our own responsibility to define ourselves. We need to encourage the children to identify their own weaknesses as well as strengths. They need to look ahead and embrace not just who they are, but who they want to be and draw a map to get there.
We need to help them build a definition of themselves so strong that when others treat them with a lack of respect or use them as a butt of their jokes, our children, while maybe hurt, will not absorb those thoughts and internalize them, making them their own. They will be more equipped to cope with the world around them and stay strong.
And we need to talk to our kids about what is going on around us. We need to address with our kids that the violence is a result of not just mental illness but being mistreated by others and their own lack of self esteem, courage and self worth. We need to talk about how these things are often built up over years and how a lack of love, respect and acceptance combined mental illness and a lack of support in multiple areas of their lives is the fuel for these tragedies.
I won't pretend that this is the one and only answer to ending the heart breaking events that have become almost a normalcy in the news, but these steps, though easier said then done, will make a difference. We'd be nieve to ignore these emotional and social links between the horrors committed and, the best place to start is with ourselves and in our homes.
Let's be a part of the solution, let's be the force of positiveity and love that the world needs to change. Let's ban together to change the world for the better. And let's start today.
That's where we are wrong. There's no one place to assign the blame. We are all responsible to some degree. We underestimate the amount of power that develops from feeling loved, accepted and having a support system complete with help when needed. We want blame the parents, the school, the mental health community but we need to blame everyone, all of society, including ourselves.
But it's not too late to do something. It's not too late to stand up and make the changes in your life and your home. It won't undo what's been done, but it may make a difference in what happens tomorrow and that's what we have to focus on now.
As parents, teachers, care givers, family members and friends of children, we must teach them to treat others with love, acceptance and respect. We need to expand this idea to not just their elders, but to their peers, their siblings, and the kid they don't know in a grade or two below them. We need to teach them that we, as people, have an effect on the others around us and it is our responsibility to do what we can to ensure that that effect is a good one. Just as a well times smile can brighten someone's day, a cruel joke made at the cost of another can be devastating.
We need to teach the children in our lives that differences don't make someone less of a person or beneath you, but they are something to embrace and celebrate.These differences are what make the world such an amazing place. They are what drives the world forward and even fuel innovative ideas. Further more, we are different form others around us, too, weather it be in race, ethnicity, economic class, family size, religion, age, gender or diagnosis. With that in mind, who are we to judge and mistreat another because they, too are different?
We need to teach the children of the world that someone who needs help is not one to fear, hate or isolate, but one to help to the best of our ability which may be encouraging them or helping them to find someone more qualified to step in.
And, as adults, is also our job to ensure that these amazing kids around us have ample opportunity to see how it's done through you, because our actions and our words have an effect on them, too. When we allow judgment into our speech, they hear it. They adopt it. When we shrug if off and say that it's not our problem, they, too, undertake a lack of responsibility. When we make excuses and blame others, they have no reason to look at themselves and their actions. We must model a world of love and acceptance. We must celebrate differences and act with respect. We need to show our younger generation how to react to someone you may not like without being cruel or rude, but accepting them for who they are and respecting them as a person, if nothing more.
But that's not where it stops. We need to flip the coin. We need to teach our younger counterparts that it is our own responsibility to define ourselves. We need to encourage the children to identify their own weaknesses as well as strengths. They need to look ahead and embrace not just who they are, but who they want to be and draw a map to get there.
We need to help them build a definition of themselves so strong that when others treat them with a lack of respect or use them as a butt of their jokes, our children, while maybe hurt, will not absorb those thoughts and internalize them, making them their own. They will be more equipped to cope with the world around them and stay strong.
And we need to talk to our kids about what is going on around us. We need to address with our kids that the violence is a result of not just mental illness but being mistreated by others and their own lack of self esteem, courage and self worth. We need to talk about how these things are often built up over years and how a lack of love, respect and acceptance combined mental illness and a lack of support in multiple areas of their lives is the fuel for these tragedies.
I won't pretend that this is the one and only answer to ending the heart breaking events that have become almost a normalcy in the news, but these steps, though easier said then done, will make a difference. We'd be nieve to ignore these emotional and social links between the horrors committed and, the best place to start is with ourselves and in our homes.
Let's be a part of the solution, let's be the force of positiveity and love that the world needs to change. Let's ban together to change the world for the better. And let's start today.
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