The key words are: “how can you protect”.

I am a firm believer that children need to grow up and learn how to handle things by themselves. If they try something that is wrong (drugs or alcohol) and it has consequences, especially if they get caught. They have to pay those consequences and I don’t get involved. If they have problems at high school with the teachers, they need to learn how to work it out. Before they entered high school, I was there to help work things out between them and their teacher, but as they get older they should be capable to work it out themselves. I will always be there to guide and help them if needed, but they have to take control of their lives.

That being said, when it comes to cyberbullying or for bullying in general, I am also a firm believer that in a tactful manner, you need to be in everyone’s face. And that includes your child’s.  If you have a gut feeling that something is wrong. DO NOT IGNORE IT!

One of my daughters was acting off. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what. She kept telling me to leave her room. I refused.  I sat on the end of her bed for a half hour telling her I was not leaving until she told me what was wrong, at which she finally told me about being cyberbullied.

I read a stat on http://www.how-to-stop-bullying.com/cyberbullying.html

               That said that 58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online and they have never told their parents. More than 4 out of 10 say it has happened more than once based on the “2004 i-SAFE” survey of 1,500 students grades 4-8

That means if you have two children at least one of them will experience cyberbullying.

What are you going to do to protect your child?

You cannot stop it from happening and you cannot be there 24/7 to protect them, so what can you do? 

Cyberbullying and Bullying attacks your children at their core. It attacks their self-esteem and self-confidence. All the years you spent building them up can come crashing down if you are not proactive. That is why it is so important to get into everyone’s face. You have to let your child know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are worth fighting for, that they are important to you. If you don’t get involved your ghild will think they are not worth fighting for and that you agree with what the bully is saying. They will think this even if you don’t know anything about it. Because deep inside they still believe you know everything.

Photo from istock

A teacher was doing a project “to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each student three ribbons imprinted with gold letters which read, ‘Who I Am Makes a Difference’”. They were to honor someone and give them the other ribbons. That person in turn was also to honor someone and pass the last ribbon to them so they could honor someone else.

An executive in town was honored and received a ribbon to honor someone important to him. While driving home he decided to give it to his son. When he sat down and told his son how much he meant to him. His son started to sob uncontrollability. When his son could speak, he said through his tears, “Dad, I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I don’t need to.” 

This man  loved his son but he was too busy, tired, or worn out each day to take the time to tell him so. He expected his son to achieve much because he had achieved much. He probably thought his son knew that he loved him because he had provided a good home, food, and all the extras for him. But what our children need to know and hear from our lips, is that we really care.

What can you say to your children today:

Praise your children for their actions and their choices not just their abilities. If they have made bad choices, let them know that you’ve made bad choices also and that you are there for them. That is how we learn. But that it doesn’t affect how much you love them.

Helice “Sparky” Bridges, has turned this into a movement. Click Here to hear an example of a blue ribbon ceremony on The WIN.

Sparky’s goal is to inspire children to live their dreams. Our goal is to help you to inspire your children to be all that they can be.

To Watch the Video Click Here

Balloons= humans. You can discuss how we are the same and yet how we are different especially if you use different balloons.

Good attitudes can be forgiving, loving, helping, sharing, giving, peace, happiness, or  joy.

Bad attitudes are seen by fighting, selfishness, hatred, hitting, not sharing, anger, unforgiveness, or bitterness.

Sun/light= pressures of life that produces the smells that come out of our lives.

The things that are inside of us will come out. People will see and smell our attitudes. By teaching this to children at a young age they will learn that their actions do matter even when no one is looking. We can’t get around it.

“Character is not inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action.” - Helen Gahagan Douglas

In previous blogs, we have discussed helping our children:

• Build their confidence by doing things they are afraid of
• Learn they are not failures if they don’t accomplish a task the first time
• Grow into a positive characteristic that you expect them to have 

We now want to touch on the labels we place on our children. Children will grow up believing the labels that you or other adults put on them. Many labels can be viewed in either a negative or positive way. It always seems easier to look at the negative, but since we want to build our children’s confidence, we need to see how labels can be used in a positive way. 

• A child who is extremely stubborn also can be viewed as persistent. In business, persistence is a great thing.
• Someone who is shy actually might be observing everyone.  If you encourage that child to talk, you could be impressed by her great insights.
• An unpredictable child is flexible. He will be able to adjust easily to circumstances that don’t go his way. When obstacles come across his path, he will find a way around them.
• The daydreamer is exhibiting creativity. It is the people who think out of the box that make the greatest differences in our world. Where would we be without Thomas Edison or the Wright Brother?

These are just a few of the labels we can place on our children. Just as there are two sides to a coin, there are two sides to a label. We shouldn’t let other adults use negative labels on our children. It might be uncomfortable, but we need to tell that adult how great our child is be because of the positive side of that label. Our child might not say a word to us, but we will have just given her the greatest gift: the knowledge that we believe in her and that she will succeed.

Confidence is believing in ourselves: that we can do anything, achieve anything and be anything. 

It is important, because it helps us to try new things, take risks, persist when obstacles appear and find creative ways to solve problems. 

Confident children are able to make decisions and choices without the help of others. They meet challenges head on. Isn’t this what we want for our children? Do we want them to make their own choices? Do we want them to be children who stand up for themselves and others? 

As parents, we play a major role in developing our children’s confidence. It is our reactions that tell them whether we approve or disapprove of them. When we encourage their efforts, not just their successes, we promote their confidence. We teach them that they do not need to fear failure, that they should keep trying, because eventually they will come up with the answers to their problems or the ability to do what they are setting out to do. 

Do our children understand that life is full of ups and downs? Do they know that sometimes they will succeed and sometimes they will fail? Most people don’t see the value of failing or having down times, because if they did, our society would have less need for anti-depressant drugs. We need to teach ourselves and our children that it is OK to make mistakes or even fail sometimes, because we are not perfect. But our mistakes or failures don’t determine who we become – only the outcome. Will we give up, or will we try again? Confident people try again. 

Henry Ford had a great saying: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” We become who we are through our thoughts about what we can or can’t do. As parents, we need to help our children think about what they can do. 

What do you expect your child to become? Study after study verifies that children rise to the expectation of teachers, parents and other adults in their lives. Write down the person you see your child becoming – not what career she will have or how much money she will make, but what characteristics she will have. Think about important characteristics such as honesty, kindness, helpfulness, creativity, leadership, and persistence. Then find opportunities to praise her when she exhibits one of the characteristics: “That was so helpful. I’ll bet you help lots of people when you grow up.”  ”You were the first one to be honest. Honesty will help you as you get older because other people will be able to trust you.” 

Your child wants you to be proud of her. Take the time today to tell her how proud you are. Encourage her that you are proud when she steps out of her comfort zone to try something new.  It doesn’t matter whether she accomplished it – just that she tried.

What are we afraid of?

 “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you must look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”   Eleanor Roosevelt

If we are to gain confidence by every experience in which we look fear in the face, we must also confront a question: What are we doing that makes us afraid?

Many times in my life, I have run away from the things I fear. Or I have put it off until it became more painful not to do it than to do it. I know I am not alone in these actions, because I often have heard people speak on this topic.

I have found as a mother of two awesome girls that I don’t want them to go through life the way I have. I want them to break free of the same chains that may have prevented me from being the person I knew I could be. I want them to be all they can be. But how can I make that happen?

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Confidence is gained by the experiences in which we face fear.” Does that mean I must let my children do something they are afraid to do? Must I encourage them to do something that scares them? Will I need to lead by example and do something that I am afraid to do?

The answer to all of the above questions is the same: yes!

Confidence is like the ocean tide: sometimes we have a great amount, similar to high tide.   Sometimes we have very little — low tide. Our lives are no different than the ocean’s currents. We need to realize this and make our children aware of it. Once we have this awareness, life when we don’t have very much confidence becomes more bearable. We experience no guilt or self-condemnation that we are failures. It is just a process of life over which we have no control, like the receding of the water at low tide. But we can take steps needed to move forward into confidence.

What are some steps you can take to build your child’s confidence during the low tides of life?

First, find an activity your child has accomplished. Is it riding a bike, hitting a home run, catching a fly ball, winning a chess game, making an art piece, knowing how to spell,  being good at math, graduating from kindergarten? Everyone is good at something.

Take pictures of your child achieving in that activity and write words of encouragement or quotes around the picture to create a success notebook. This can be taken out and reviewed when confidence is low. Your child can relive the event through the words and pictures. His eyes will see the results of his achievement, his hands can touch the picture and the book. He can read words written about his great achievement. This will impact  several senses and learning abilities, helping his confidence to grow.  

Other ways to record successes include writing your child’s achievements on pieces of paper and connecting the pieces together to form a success chain than can circle a room.

Post your child’s success stories on a bulletin board with so they are visible every day.

These activities bring the child’s successes to the front of his mind. He will see where he has been, increasing his confidence to succeed when faced with fearful challenges in the future.