Bullying Is a Huge Problem!

If my volume of e-mail is any indication, BULLYING is one of the most pressing issues facing parents of school-age children, so please do not feel that you are alone in your worries if you are facing problems with bullying.

Bullying; A Critical Problem

I also want you to know that I view any bullying situation as a critical issue in the healthy development of any child!

Now what should you do if your child is facing a problem with bullying; either by doing some bullying, or by being bullied?

Bullying Cannot Be Solved in Just One Home!

It Takes a Community Effort

Asking your son or daughter to try to fix or stop this bullying behaviour would be futile; just about as futile as it would be for me to ask you, as one lone parent, to attempt to fix this huge problem!

Societal Problems NEED Societal Solutions

As I see it, this problem will never be fixed if each family attempts to make the change all alone! Asking you, as one parent, to do something, in your home, with your lone child would be foolish. Attempting to combat a huge societal problem like bullying would be as silly as Martin Luther King trying to do away with racial prejudice by talking to his son in his kitchen!

Do you see my point? Bullying is not a problem of just one child, or just one family. Even though your child may be a victim, we all must attack the big problem at it's source. Bullying is far bigger than you, your child or your family!

Bullying Is a Huge Problem Involving Many People!

This is a huge societal problem! It needs a societal solution! Now, don't think for a minute that I am telling you to throw up your hands in helplessness... because I am not!!

Here Is a Solution That Might really Work!

What I am telling you is that you need to get started in helping to CREATE THE COMMUNITY THAT IS RAISING YOUR CHILDREN! Do not accept what is going on! But, rather, change it by taking positive action! Just like we teach you in Rule #1 in our curriculum: figure out what you want your community to be like and start building it that way, with a group of families.

How might you do this? It's simple, get a copy of our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and start a parenting class!

A Simple Concept

This is a very simple concept to understand. It is so much easier for you to teach the use of a simple word like "please" to your own children, if every home they visit uses that word in a similar way! Your child will use PLEASE because everyone else uses it!

By the same token, it is so much simpler to expect your child to make good choices with regard to drugs, if lots of other children do likewise!

It is so much simpler for you to expect your child to behave appropriately while on a date to the Prom, if he is dating a young lady who has been taught the same appropriate dating behavior!

Protecting Children from Bullying Can Be Simple

And... It is so much easier to protect your children from bullying if they are going to a school and interacting with other children who have also been taught to respect the rights and feelings of others!

This Sounds Difficult... But It Really Is Not!

"How do you get there?" you ask. Well, it is pretty simple... you must open a discussion with other parents! A parenting with Dignity Class does exactly that! Parenting with Dignity classes stimulate discussions about what you all wish to teach your children in your community! You must come to some agreement about what all of you are going to teach your children.

You cannot leave this to chance! Leaving it to chance is probably already resulting in Bullying! You must take positive action to create a positive community where children grow up respecting each other!

Please subscribe to this blog and I promise that I will do a series of future articles about how to set up and effectively run a Parenting with Dignity class.

Creating “Positive Peer Pressure”

Questions and Answers Are Only part of the Picture

I wish to thank those of you who submit questions to this column. Not only do you personally receive an answer to your own questions, but by asking your question, you also allow others to benefit because you may have just asked a question that helps many others as well. Many families can benefit from the question asked by one parent! However, I would like to point out that these questions and answers in this column represent only a small part of the value that the Parenting with Dignity Program has to offer to you and your family! Just think how wonderful it would be to be involved in the same process with weekly discussions about similar issues with other parents in your community !

Build a Strong Community to Raise Your Children

I cannot recommend strongly enough that you order a copy of the Parenting with Dignity Video Curriculum and/or a copy of either of my books, Parenting with Dignity or Parenting with Dignity the Early Years! By writing questions, many readers of this column can, and do, receive specific help with individual problems , however, this process may be of fleeting value because that small bit of advice may not help out the next time that another different problem arises! This process of question and answer keeps throwing parents back into the same loop... ask, answer; ask, answer; ask answer; and so on.

Develop a Complete Plan for raising Your Children

What the Parenting with Dignity Course does is to outline a complete plan for raising children in a highly effective and dignified manner. The program teaches you to be your own source of answers! My books do the same thing. In my books, I outline a complete plan for raising self-directed and fulfilled, happy children who are fully capable of making great decisions for themselves based upon a strong and complete foundation of values, morals, and ethics that you have taught to them! The video curriculum and the books teach you to create your own strategies tailored to your own family and your own problems.

Obviously, I will continue to offer specific advice via this column because it fills a need for so many parents and so many families. Even parents who have completed the course find this type of forum to be helpful. However, the point that I am attempting to make here is that in spite of receiving valuable help from these regular articles, the most broad and lasting value that you can receive from Parenting with Dignity lies in allowing yourself to go through the entire course with other parents. Going through each lesson and doing all of the assignments in conjunction with other families will bring the most value to your family!

Get the Maximum Value from Parenting with Dignity

The maximum value that families can receive from Parenting with Dignity comes from not just going through the class; the greatest value comes from forming a class and going through the curriculum with other parents in the neighborhood or community! When families go through the complete course together, they all benefit much more than they would by just going through the curriculum on their own.

Benefit from the Experiences of Others!

Just like in this column, many others may benefit from the question submitted by one parent. Most people tell us that they benefit as much from the discussions with other parents in their classes as they do from the curriculum itself!

A Very Simple Concept

But even more than benefiting from the questions of others, there is an even greater benefit that families receive from going through the curriculum together! This is not a difficult concept to understand. Please understand this: It is so much easier to teach your own children something if every other home that they visit is teaching a similar thing! It is so much easier to teach something as simple as saying “please” and “thank-you” at your own dinner table, if every home your child visits is teaching the same thing!

Likewise, it is so much easier to teach your children the advantages of drug-free living if your children are in constant contact with other children who have been taught a similar approach to life! Peer pressure is only negative if it pushes in a negative direction! Positive peer pressure can be a parent's biggest ally! Parenting with Dignity helps you to create this powerful positive force for your children.

Positive Peer Pressure

It is so much more natural to expect your children to behave in a desired manner if their friends are doing so too! Can it be more simple? It is just so much more reasonable to expect your child to behave in an appropriate manner while on a date to the Prom if he/she is dating a young person who has been taught similar dating behavior! Then just imagine that they are on a "double-date" with a couple more young people who have also been taught similar dating behavior; the peer pressure is now pushing them all toward doing the right thing!

Create a Positive Community for Raising Your Children

Put very simply, Parenting with Dignity will help you to build the positive community to raise your children! Parenting with Dignity will create positive peer pressure to "push" your children towards positive decisions and behavior! Please join the many other families who have started a Parenting with Dignity Course in their neighborhood. Order a copy of our DVD Curriculum and start a class today!