The use of kindness as a conscious, very effective grassroots solution to bullying is picking up steam. Where youth are concerned, sometimes the kindness is purely their idea, such as the kind intervention of two high school upperclassmen that sparked Canada's Pink Shirt Day and students' anti-bullying countermeasures in Iowa in 2012. Other times the impetus comes from teachers and school … [Read more...] about Kindness really could be going viral! Just look…
cyberbullying
Zooming in on social norms
This is a sidebar to my earlier post about social norms as one of the solutions to social cruelty online – in case readers would like a little more definition. Social norms are practically super powers. As I mentioned in my main post, this doesn't occur to us much because, well, these are norms, after all – part of the wallpaper, socially speaking. They're everyday behavior based on intangibles … [Read more...] about Zooming in on social norms
‘Being Ginger’: A film for anyone addressing bullying
Being Ginger is really about being human. In a fundamentally kind, sometimes humorous, amazingly un-moralistic way, director Scott Harris shows what it both feels and looks like to be dehumanized and what healing from that looks like, even as the casual cruelty he documents continues. Sometimes he asked for it while doing his filming but it's still amazing and disturbing to see how unthinkingly … [Read more...] about ‘Being Ginger’: A film for anyone addressing bullying
Continued downward trend in bullying & other violence for US youth
This is news that we could use more of: US 2-to-17-year-olds have been exposed to decreasing sexual victimization and violence, including bullying. Examining "50 types of violence that kids might witness or experience themselves," researchers at the University of New Hampshire and University of the South found "significant declines in kids' exposure to 27 types of violence and no significant … [Read more...] about Continued downward trend in bullying & other violence for US youth
Risk implications of kids going mobile: Research
Even back in 2010, the EU Kids Online researchers in 25 countries noted that "the ways through and the locations from which children go online are diversifying, and this trend is continuing." It has indeed continued. Increasingly obvious to parents, the mobile platform enables "ubiquitous internetting," as Dutch researchers put it way back in 2006). At the same time, mobile represents the most … [Read more...] about Risk implications of kids going mobile: Research