Sibling Bullying: When Bullying Starts at Home

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Girl In The Water: Bullying Starts At Home. 

The research link between bullying and sibling abuse can’t be overlooked

By Nancy Kilgore, M.S.

Bullying in America is at epidemic levels, often starting in the American home. Each year, 19 million children are abused in their homes by their own siblings. Nearly two million children use a weapon as a means of resolving a conflict with a sibling. Siblings commit 10 percent of the murders that occur in the American family.

Research has shown a solid link between bullying and sibling abuse. Children who are abused by their siblings are often targets to bullies and often become bullies. The terrifying world of sibling abuse and bullying is exposed in this book. The author’s account is a “first” in the nation.
It is a brilliantly written portrayal that offers a rare and riveting glimpse of what lies beneath the surface of millions of children’s and adult’s lives. The author’s first bully was in her home…her own sister. The author leads the reader on a journey back to her childhood home—where she is confronted with her young dreams and fears, her familial bonds, and the profound, lingering influences that sibling abuse and bullying had on her adulthood and parenting. Resembling the scariest fairy tale, the author’s personal story is narrated with a singular devotion to re-telling her experiences, no matter what the cost.

Like a fairytale, it provides lessons for us all concerning the tragedies and experiences of victims of bullying and sibling abuse. It grips the reader’s imagination with the same unrelenting moral force that fairy tales have for children. This unique story breaks the seal to what has been hidden in so many American homes…sibling abuse. It is a hopeful story for millions of children and adults. This book is comprehensive and has a bibliography, resources and informational strategies for parents and adult survivors.

About the Author:

Nancy Fox-Kilgore, MS is a survivor of sibling abuse and bullying. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Oregon. Her B.A. and teaching credentials were received from Sacramento State University. Nancy is a leading expert on Bullying, Sibling Abuse, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She is the author of EVERY EIGHTEEN SECONDS: PERSONAL JOURNEY INTO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and THE SOURCEBOOK FOR WORKING WITH BATTERED WOMEN.

Nancy is a consultant for the United States Department of Victim's of Crime. She is endorsed for her trainings by state domestic violence coalitions, associations, and organizations. Nancy is a continuing education professor for various universities throughout the United States. Nancy consults and trains from the background of a researcher and a trauma survivor. She enjoys helping survivors of bullying and sibling abuse to overcome fears and move to the unconditional truth of their true selves. She is a workshop facilitator, stress consultant/ life coach and lives in Sacramento, California. 

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Teens Addicted to Facebook?

Facebook Addiction

Facebook, our largest growing social networking site and many are now considered FB Addicts.
Is there anything wrong with being hooked on Facebook?  Maybe, if it is consuming your life, but like everything in life, you need to set boundaries.

Yes, it is long overdue, but finally it has been created – a 12 step program for those addicted to Facebook. FAA (Facebook Addicts Anonymous) groups are being formed worldwide to defeat this growing addiction. Many Facebook addicts have been ridiculed as being weak and selfish by those around them.
However, more and more people are beginning to recognize this addiction for the true disease that it is, and that it cannot be overcome by simple willpower alone.

Below you will find the Twelve Steps to Freedom that are being utilized by FaceBook addicts to break the hold of this menace in their lives.

Step 1: Acknowledge you have a problem. This, of course, is the first and most critical step. The individual must recognize and admit that FaceBook is no longer simply a place for casual social connection to them; it is an addition that has taken control of their lives.
Step 2: Recognize your need of a Higher Power. Once you recognize and admit the addicting hold that FaceBook has on your life, you will soon realize that you are unable to quit on your own. You must have help from someone, something, greater than yourself; someone…who does not live in the FaceBook world. Only you can determine who that Higher Power is. It may be your spouse, your parents or your roommate, but it will be a real live person whom you can touch.
Step 3: Surrender your password to your Higher Power. Step three is a crucial step. You must surrender your FaceBook password to your Higher Power. You must allow them monitor all your activities and change your privacy settings.
Step 4: Do a thorough and fearless inventory of your friends list. For this fourth step, you must go through each and every face on your friends list. You must acknowledge to your Higher Power whether or not you truly know each person, and in what way.
Step 5: Delete all those friends you do not truly know. Now that you’ve created that list of unknown friends, you must make the big step of deleting them from your friends list. It will be difficult. There will be a grieving process involved, but it must be done.
Step 6: Remove the FaceBook app from your cellphone. You’ve come a long way, by this point. Step six will be a turning point in your recovery. You will purposefully and intentionally remove the FaceBook app from your cellphone. You will no longer receive FaceBook status reports on your phone. You will no longer post your immediate thoughts from any and every location. You will confine your FaceBook use to your computer.
Step 7: Do a second inventory of your friends list. You narrowed it down once. In this step, you are going to make a clean sweep. You will determine which of the people on this list is actually related to you and, which are not. Third cousins, twice removed is the very farthest limit accepted in true blood relations.
Step 8: Delete everyone except family. By this time, you are beginning to get stronger. Gather support if you need it, though, this is going to take some time. Delete ALL your FaceBook friends except those you have listed on your family list.
Step 9: Begin using email again. In this step, you will begin putting your new life into place. You will begin using your email account once again to communicate with friends and family. You will re-learn how to attach photo files to emails in order to share them with others. It would be easy to turn back to FaceBook at this point. It may seem like it would be the easy solution, but it ISN’T. You know that.
Step 10: Post your final goodbye on your status. Now that you’ve re-established your new life, it is time to make an official public statement regarding your freedom from this addiction. Post your final farewell in your status.
Step 11: Delete your account. This step must IMMEDIATELY follow Step 10. You must quickly delete your FaceBook account before reading any replies to status update. Other FaceBook addicts will try to dissuade you. They will tell you that having an account won’t hurt you. You must NOT listen to them. They are as in need of help as you were when you began this program.
Step 12: Join a social network for recovering FaceBook addicts. Now that you have reached the last and final step of your program, it is finally time to rejoin the world of the living. You will find it online. A new FAA social network had been created, that will support you in your ongoing recovery. Begin to live again!

Source:  Internet For Free

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Teens and Travel

Teens and Travel

Nothing broadens the mind more than travel. Being able to experience other cultures and other points of view firsthand helps cement the confidence of what is good about a person’s native values, while fostering respect for different ways of living. Adults benefit from travel, but teenagers and tweens may benefit even more. Adults are already aware that the world is a diverse place that needs to be navigated according to diplomatic, cultural norms while adhering to core principals. Younger people, soon to enter adulthood, need to learn this lesson directly if they are to employ it effectively, as soon as possible. Insurance makes these experiences possible.

Young adults, and children soon to enter their teenage years, expand their understanding of the wider world when they are in direct contact with it. While unaccompanied travel is worrisome for parents, with the proper safeguards, travel can be the adventure that sets a young person on a future course that will reap great rewards. In the current global economy, in an age of interconnectedness, there is no harm in exposing young people to diverse outlooks, and there is plenty for them to gain. By ensuring young travelers are able to negotiate and navigate potential setbacks, underage travel can be a boon for all involved.

Independent travel benefits young explorers in a number of ways:

1. Direct contact with foreign cultures brings a wider understanding of the diversity that the citizens of the world have devised to deal with life’s problems and concerns.

2. Having to conduct daily interactions in a foreign language encourages flexibility in communication, and in utilizing the linguistic resources every person has. There is no shame in being a stranger who is trying to fit in.

3. Young people need to know, firsthand, that the world is larger than what they are accustomed to. Being able to empathize with other viewpoints is a negotiating tool that serves everyone involved in business, art, or public service.

4. A broad perspective allows a person to consider all available options, and all possible consequences.

Of course, every parent worries when their child travels around the block out of sight, let alone to a foreign country. Travel insurance provides peace of mind that pitfalls and emergencies have been considered, and that there is a mechanism in place during the journey to deal with mishaps or misadventures.

Travel insurance for younger travelers embarking on long-distance trips can cover a number of contingencies that threaten to derail what should be an educational experience. In worst-case scenarios, a medical emergency can put a traveler in an unfamiliar environment, and entail costly bills in foreign currency. Travel insurance guarantees that medically necessary services will be reimbursed according to local provisions and statutes. In the unlikely event that a medical emergency occurs, travel insurance acts as a go-between for patients and their families, and the medical providers who bring events to a satisfactory conclusion for the trip to continue uninterrupted.

Likewise, travel insurance can provide trip protection in the event of missed connections, vehicle break down, or other unforeseen circumstances that prevent a traveler from reaching his or her destination when intended. In these situations, travel insurance will cover the cost of replacement tickets for transportation, or for hotel accommodations that will be needed until the trip resumes.

Special contributor: Robbie Wilson

Contact Robbie at Robbie465@professionalintern.com at Professional Intern.

Internet Classes: Start Your Kids Young

A good education should prepare its students for those tasks and issues that they are most likely to face in their adult lives.

We know that computer literacy has become an essential part of that preparation in the 21st century. We can probably also agree that these digital natives – a generation born in cyberspace – face some unique challenges. So it’s time to revamp their curricula.

Let’s introduce some coursework that better suits their needs and fills a few gaps.

10 Internet classes that should be taught in grade school:

1. Microsoft Word Training – If for no other reason than to develop clerical skills, this staple of office tools is a must-have for our future workforce. Something as ubiquitous as Microsoft Word – indeed the entire Office suite – should be required learning for our kids.
2. Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University – You don’t have to look far nowadays to see the economic fallout that results from financial ignorance. It isn’t too early for grade school kids to receive a scaled-down primer on fiscal responsibility, and  to learn how to handle (invest and save) money.
3. Social Media Etiquette – Like it or not, Facebook, Twitter, online forums and chat rooms, and other social networking sites have become fixtures of 21st century social interaction, and we need to teach our kids how to use them. This particular course is geared toward college students, but a version aimed at adolescents who are already active on social media sites just makes sense.
4. Poetry Classes – Poets are the conscience of society and the blacksmiths of language. What better way to enhance the minds and hearts of our future than exposure to an art form that can expand our children’s vocabularies and promote artistic and articulate self-expression?
5. Cultural Diversity Training – There are numerous courses and webinars available to corporate clients who wish to educate their workforces in cultural diversity. I say it’s time to start this training earlier, and instill tolerance and respect in our youth before they graduate to adulthood.
6. Fitness/Nutrition – With childhood obesity at epidemic proportions, it may be time to include some education on fitness and nutrition while Junior’s already sitting on his keister at the computer.
7. Sex Education – This is a lightning rod issue for most parents, and there is anything but a consensus as to the proper timing and approach. Some even question whether the responsibility lies with schools rather than at home. The reality is that sex is already in our kids’ faces far sooner than it should be, via popular cultural and media. How they respond to the messages they’re getting has far-reaching consequences which can neither be left to chance nor for a later date to address.
8. Internet Safety – As our children learn to interact, research and surf online, there is no more important prerequisite than an education in internet safety. This needs to be required learning for both grade-schoolers and parents.
9. Environmental Awareness – A curriculum that makes it fun as well as informative to “think green” is long overdue for all of us. Let’s start with the generation who will inherit this planet.
10. Conflict Resolution – The importance of learning how to settle disputes peacefully, as with this lesson plan, cannot be overstated. This should be part of every grade school’s curriculum.

The grade school years are when children begin to develop socially, and establish their sense of self. It seems disingenuous to delay the kind of education we’ve discussed here until afterward.

Parents and teachers need to re-examine what children need – and when they need it – in order to best equip them for adulthood.

Source: Internet Service Providers

What is Autism: Coming of Age

Did you know over the next 10 to 15 years, an estimated 800,000 children with autism will age out of their school systems? Nearly three quarters of these families are worried about their child’s financial future, but most have done little to plan for when their child with autism becomes an adult. That’s why today, on behalf of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), we encourage you to join this mission to get the word out that help is available for families with children with special needs!

You can learn more about MassMutual and ways it’s helping families plan for the future by visiting www.massmutual.com/autism.  Also be sure to check out MassMutual on Facebook www.Facebook.com/MassMutual for daily tips and articles.

What is Autism: Coming of Age?

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are some of the most complex disabilities that families can face. This documentary is, in part, a follow-up to groundbreaking research from the December 2008 “Easter Seals Living with Autism” study, also co-sponsored by MassMutual, that examined the hopes, fears and challenges of parents raising children with autism.

That study, conducted by Harris Interactive, one of the leading consumer research companies in the U.S., revealed the top concerns of families living with autism. These include:

- Independence
- Financial well-being
- Quality of life
- Employment
- Housing needs
- Education
- Health
- The child’s longevity