What were your beliefs about a bully when you were in school? I’ll be honest. Until I began doing research on bullying, I thought that kids who were bullies didn’t weren’t being parented well.

I know! Judgy!

I thought that they were just acting like either their parents or perhaps an older sibling or family member. A lot of people still think of bullies this way and you know, society overall tends to be very judgy about parents and kids.

I thought that bullies were just bad kids who loved making people like me miserable. 

But, no one ever had a conversation with me about bullying or bullies at all. 

The truth is that kids who bully are just kids who have not been taught how to deal with their emotions. Now, I’m not going to tell you that all kids who bully decide to target people for the same reason. 

There are many motivators for bullies to do what they do. But right now, I want to talk about what you should do if your child is a bully. 

Keep in mind that a child who bullies ...

How much do you know about cyberbullying?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “cyberbullying” was first used in 1998 and is defined as “the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person. In other words, cyberbullying is the act of bullying anywhere online. Our use of the web leaves digital footprints that can be tracked by people who know how to follow a footprint. 

That’s why you might have heard of some celebrities getting canceled for having posted terrible things during the early age of the internet.

With time and the advancement of technology, cyberbullying has increased, but the protection laws for cyberbullying (as well as other forms of bullying) have not caught up with it. 

Cyberbullying is bullying online. The acts are repeated and aimed at shaming, slurring, angering, humiliating, or causing any negative distress to another person. Like bullying, cyberbullying has not been federally defined in the U.S. as well as in many other countries be...

The practice of eliminating repetitive “sorry” statements might not seem so harmful, or important, but hear me out. 

Research finds that women have a lower offense threshold, meaning that they tend to apologize significantly more than men.

This matters a lot because when women don’t say sorry at all or as much, they are perceived as too cold, not nice, b*!chy, or bossy. 

Always saying sorry is also used as a way to deflect tension and awkwardness and it is also used as a way to show uncertainty or self-doubt. 

Most importantly, when people overuse the word “sorry”, really apologies come off as insincere or meaningless. 

Eliminating this habit will help you become more assertive, develop a strong voice and increase your confidence. On a bigger scale, you will help change society’s view of what assertive women are like, and believe it or not, this helps us get closer to being treated equally.

So, here are some examples of how people overuse “sorry” and how you can reword the statem...

Your child might be exhibiting signs of bullying and you might miss them if you don't know what to look for.

I was speaking to a parent this past week who was feeling awful for not having listened to her child. 

You see, her child had been bullied for a while. She thought that her incidents were not that bad. Then, months later she found out that her child was experiencing extreme symptoms from her bullying experiences. 

Her child was having panic attacks, couldn’t sleep, and got physically sick often. Her child kept asking to stay home and then one day, her child just refused to go to school.  

After long talks and some therapy sessions, this mom found out that the bullying experiences had been very consistent over the course of a year. Furthermore, she found out that teachers had been part of the bullying as well. 

Sadly, this happens. That’s why it’s important for parents to ask as many questions as possible to find out what kids are really saying. 

There are keywords to liste...

It’s been a heavy week, hasn’t it? 

There were several shootings this week, but the one that’s been highlighted the most is the one in Uvalde, Texas.

I have to be honest. I have been avoiding reading or listening to a lot of it because my emotional bandwidth just can’t take it right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t care. I certainly do. But, I have to limit my consumption of things that I am aware will be too much to handle at the time.

One thing I've had to do regardless of how I feel is to check in with my kids to find out how they're doing. I know that the answers might not be ideal. I don’t expect them to feel like the world is an amazing place and that they will feel 100 percent safe and secure. 

But, I want to make sure that they know I am there for them and that they can ask me any questions. 

That’s the job of a parent, right? No matter what is going on, we never stop being there for our kids. 

So, I want to remind you to please talk with your children about what they’re fe...

I try to be as involved as possible in my children’s lives. I do not accept short answers when I ask them how their day has gone. I try to have conversations with them to know what’s really been going on in their lives, but it's not always so easy. 

They are in their teens and sometimes, sharing about their lives is NOT something they're interested in doing.

Try A Different Approach

Since kids can be really stubborn about opening up, I've had to learn when to leave them alone and when to get them to engage without them realizing that they're doing it. 

It has to be subtle and all about them!

For example, this morning, my younger child was very cranky and didn't want to talk. As I drove her to school, I asked her if she knew what was making her feel cranky. Of course, she gave me the usual teen answer, "I dunno". 

Since I didn't want her to go off to school feeling down, I started telling her that I imagine that if her favorite stuffed animal were to come alive as all the toys did...

I was speaking to someone who just moved to the United States about what to expect from the public school system.

It was insightful to learn that while this person had visited the United States a lot over the past 10-years and even attended university in the states, their idea of how schools are run and parents' role in the way things are done at schools was surprising to her. 

Overall, she was impressed that while parents have a lot of power in telling the schools what they like or don't like, they mostly DON'T exercise that right.

This conversation made me realize that the reason so many parents don't get involved in decision-making processes at their children's schools is not that they do not care. It's because of a lack of knowledge.

So, I decided to share a few things you should know if you would like to take more control of your child's education in public or private schools.

✅  Parents and community members can request the minutes of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), Pa...

Some parents do what they think will help stop it, not realizing their actions can make the situation worse. 

That’s what happened to a mother who decided to directly speak to her child’s bully. 

Perhaps she wasn’t aware that boarding a school bus was considered trespassing. That’s reason enough for her to be arrested or fined (depending on the state laws). 

But this mother went further. She began verbally assaulting the 11-year old child and she ended up fighting the child (physical assault). 

The whole thing was caught on video. But, let’s assume the child hit her first. As an adult, what are the chances that the justice system will side with the mother? 

You see, I have read many news articles about similar situations because, in my opinion, parents are not well aware of efficient ways to manage bullying situations involving their children and schools are not taking bullying complaints seriously enough. 

This is why bullying awareness and prevention education needs to be offer...