My Best of 2015

There's something about this time of year that makes me wait to look back and reminisce about the year that's now in the past. As I've read back through my notes, journals, and, of course, my blog, I've found some of my favorites from 2015 to share here with you. Enjoy!

VOICES
I hear voices. These come from children, women and men who are speaking about the bullies in our lives, those that use manipulation, coercion, intimidation and ideology to justify egregious acts in our homes, schoolyards, workplaces, sports arenas, corporations, and countries. Some voices are faint and I strain to hear the words; others are loud enough to be heard around the world; and then, there is a deafening silence that scares me the most.
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Scoreboard
The use of manipulation, coercion, intimidation, and/or physical force, defines the tactics of a bully’s game, whether it is in the home, schoolyard, workplace, sports arena, corporations, countries, or in our relationships. It is a mean game wherever it is played; the same sport, different arenas. And who has not at one time or another been a player? There are winners and losers in any game, but today I salute some of the winners.

My friend's granddaughter, an introspective, pretty girl of thirteen, is in junior high school. She started the year without a best friend, without a clique to hang with. Five mean girls reminded her daily that she was a loser: nasty remarks about her appearance, sniping with cruel taunts, making a game of “Who has to sit next to (holding one’s nose) Emma?” Or making sure she heard, and understood, that she was not invited to the birthday party of a classmate.  
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Mind Your Manners
Shane Licht: His Story
One fateful day in 1994, one bad decision changed a twelve year old’s life forever. Initially home from school for a snow day, Shane invited his best friend over to his house, ignoring the message that the school bus would be on a later schedule. Both boys knew about gun safety, knew better than to pick up a gun, whether it was loaded or not. Tragically, the gun discharged in his friend’s hand and the bullet struck Shane, paralyzing him from the neck down.
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Shame on You
It is interesting to me how in one week I have read two articles, extreme in opposite of content; one about shaming children on social media, by Robbyn Peters Bennett in the Sunday, August 23, 2015, edition of Seattle Times and another from the writer Susan Sontag’s journal, “Don’t Reprimand Him Harshly", published in the July/August 2015 issue of Reader’s Digest. Both articles speak to parenting skills; one highlights the most damaging form of discipline, public shaming by bully parents, the other, a mother’s eleven commandments on how to discipline her son, while respecting his personhood.
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