Helping With a Problem

I don't often blog about my own books, but this one is special to me and I'd love to have more people read it because it might help kids with special needs.

Kids with any kind of special needs tend to get ignored or bullied in school.

I've cared about children like that since I was a child myself when I was sent to a convalescent home because of my asthma and met lots of kids with various disabilities. (Yes, I know that term isn't politically correct anymore but I was a child long ago.)

I wrote Signs of Trouble to help today's children understand what it's like to have a learning disability and, hopefully, to realize that kids who have special needs aren't necessarily very different from everyone else.

Since the kids in the book use what they've learned about safety rules to solve their problem, all youngsters can benefit from that reminder.

At the end of the book I included suggestions for parents and teachers to help children learn how to be safe and to understand others who have learning disabilities.

I hope that book will make a positive difference by doing that.

That Bully Problem

 Bullies are people who try to make themselves feel good by making other people feel bad. That's pathetic.

There are many kinds of bullying, and it's not always physical or involving kids. Even adults may bully others, often by the things they say.

As kids go back to school many of them are faced with the problem of being bullied by others. Many schools encourage kids to tattle on bullies, but I think that just makes the problem worse.

About a year ago I reviewed a book for kids that teaches them a better way to handle bullies by following the Golden Rule and treating others the way they would like to be treated. You can see that review here: http://onwordsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/benjamin-jay-was-bully.html

A website I recommend highly for information for both kids and adults on how to handle bullies is http://bullies2buddies.com

Both of those resources are based on advice by someone many people consider wise. In the Bible in book of Matthew, Chapter 5, verses 39 to 40, and in the book of Luke, Chapter 6, verses 28 to 30 it's Jesus Christ who tells his followers the technique for handling bullies and it's the same as what is suggested in the book and website I mentioned. He tells them the Golden Rule in Matthew Chapter 7, verse 12.

In other words, when a bully bothers you, don't get upset or he wins the game. Just continue to treat him or her kindly and the bully will probably realize you're winning and stop playing the game with you.

I've seen that method work in my own experience. There may be times when someone who is mentally deranged or believes he or she is helping a cause by hurting or killing others when this method might not work, but even in situations like that it's usually more likely to stop the violence than fighting back.

I hope older kids and adults will download the free e-books on the Bullies2Buddies website. And for young kids going back to school reading Benjamin Jay was a Bully by Emma Glover should help keep them from becoming targets of bullies.

Bullies #2

In the 1960s I lived in a rough inner city neighborhood. I worked the swing shift so I usually didn't get home until nearly 11:00 p.m. and often had to park a block from my apartment.

One night as I was crossing the street a gang approached.

"Hey, lady, " one of them called out. "Ya wanna f*#* with me?"

I calmly replied, "No thank you," and kept walking.

They seemed stunned and not to know how to react, so they let me alone and I got home safely.

If I had acted scared, angry or upset things probably would have gotten a lot worse. Yes, I could have been in serious trouble anyway, but by not reacting as they expected I didn't encourage their bullying.

Bullying is like a game, and if bullies get someone to react with fear or anger, they've won. That night the bullies lost.