How to successfully address Cyberbullying

An excellent and practical post for parents.

simplyilka

It is not your fault!

There was a bullying case in my children’s school. Although the school showed a very professional approach, it made me think! How would I react when my child would be involved in bullying? That’s when I started to read through the Internet. And I can tell you that the Internet is full of information on bullying to the point of being overwhelming. Knowing that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution I try to share my internet-research in a nutshell, focusing on the part of being bullied.

 

How to tell if your child is bullied?

In general, any behavior out of the normal should be looked at to find out why. Be aware if your child is:

• Being more quiet than normal
• Has difficulty sleeping and has frequent nightmares
• Has grades going down
• Is obsessed about social networking and checking text messages.

Try…

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Serengeti

In the Serengeti of my mind
I behold its sea of straw
Gently wav’ring in the breeze
That warm and gentle gift of wind
I taste the air and know with ease
That near to me you I shall find
And so my place I leave behind
And to my search I thus depart
I, the King of mighty paw
Surely do I move to you
The lioness within my heart

I find you and I am at peace
As gently I caress your fur
What was my roar is now a purr
The wise respect that gentle voice
Now with you I find release
Of the burdens that a king must bear
Although in this I have no choice
And so I cherish your embrace
Your feel, your scent both ease my mind
As sings your voice and loving eyes
Lioness Rampant, as you start to rear
Yet I am fill’d with love, not fear
And with this love, I hold you near

By then the world is left behind
In the Serengeti of my mind

Poem: The Castaway

He stood on his deserted isle
And gazed across an endless sea
From harrow’d eyes came a silent plea
He had been there, it seemed, for quite a while

He took out berry’d ink and quill
And pondered what he’d try to say
Regardless, words would his thoughts betray
So upon the parchment course they spill’d

That text into a bottle went
A stout, firm cork secured it there
A heave! He sent it through the air
And for some time was quite content

Then, one morning, he awoke
A bottle rested on the sand
But its authors didn’t understand
To their deafness their reply bespoke

So it went on for many a day
To find an ear the castaway tried
Occasionally, the sea replied
But with words so far away

The castaway never abandoned hope
He never ceased his toil of quill
Never an anguished heart is still
Across the sea he blindly groped

Then, one day, the sea atoned
A bottle bobbed in the shallow sea
Its contents that which set him free
For no longer was I so alone

Be it resolved, women should not vote

I couldn’t resist. Forgive me, OpinionatedMan

The Day the Moorings Failed

Having been given the rare honour of being a guest poster on Opinionated Man’s blog, I thought that I would reblog my guest post there.

Judging a book by its cover

Source: friesenpress.com

There is a saying that we should not judge a book by its cover. As I’ve learned in my journey to self-publish my first book (non-fiction), this saying apparently does not apply to books, paradoxically. Witness this TED talk. Or this article from the delightful Midwest Book Review site.

Barring some minor disaster, I’ll be submitting the approved edited manuscript for my forthcoming book to my self publisher FriesenPress early next week. My “all inclusive” package includes the premium cover design.

Here’s the question: what are your thoughts on what my cover design or art might look like?

The book’s title is The Mirror, Book One: Welcome to the Evil Sisterhood. There is a strong narcissism theme throughout it, and hence the title. Mirroring is an accepted behavioural trait of narcissists. It’s like the evil queen’s magic mirror in Snow White: the mirror has to show and tell the narcissistic evil queen what she wants to be true about herself, as otherwise she’ll fly into a rage and get quite ugly.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, there is a degree of horror in the story as well, not surprisingly.

Narcissists need to see reflected in their environment, especially in the words, beliefs, and attitudes of others, something they want to be ‘true’ about themselves.  Beauty, power, wealth, victim, hero, or other.

If you were the one who had to try and convey your vision for this book’s cover to your cover designer, what would you say?  What is going to really grab someone”s attention and reflect (pun intended) the nature of the book?

Poem: Be My Siren

I stand on this sleek ship, my life
A lonely man, no crew but me
Yet who, oh who, have I to blame?
These empty sails filled with salt air
Cruel Mistress Wave instead of wife
No First Mate to share my strife
Such firm rudder, that takes me where?
My old brass sextant has gone lame
The compass points all look the same
As I cut across this morbid sea
My holds, of meaning, are so empty
Oh be! Oh be! My siren fair
Haunt my soul with such sweet song
Entice me to your watery lair
Do not this pointless course prolong
Lest I of pointless course despair
For my heart’s watery death, your beauty does conspire
My course so unwise does your orchestral song inspire
Thus bring me to where I do so belong
Wrecked upon the rocks of my desire
As I descend the abyss for final rest too long
Let my last vision be of you, as I and ship expire

I’m a good enough mother, and my undies are good enough too.

For all you wonderful moms out there–especially mine–, Susan’s post is too good not to share.

Susan Lattwein

On more mornings than I care to remember I’ve driven to work with the warning to ‘make sure you’re wearing clean undies in case you have a car accident’ ringing as a warning bell in my mind. My undies were clean enough, that wasn’t the problem.

It was the fact that I had my husband’s underpants on. Oh no, I hear you say, she’s rabbiting on about underwear again. Why was I wearing my husband’s jocks; padded and generous in all the wrong places, sometimes even threateningly loose in the elastic department? (I tell a lie – they’re quite comfortable, especially the boxer trunks.)

Because there is at least one undies thief in our family. This is how it works. Clothes never found their way into the now defunct washing system (now teenagers do their own). Think busy teenage lives, school, study, jobs, better things to do/think about, so…

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