3 Tactics To Help
Your Child Face Down Bullies
Childhood bullying has become such a widespread problem that one Wisconsin community even proposed levying $1,000 fines against the parents of bullies.
In most cases, though, bullied children can’t count on help from their city councils, so it’s often up to their parents to help them find solutions. In extreme situations, fighting back might be the answer, but that should be a last resort, says a martial arts instructor who has taught young people how to face bullies.
“You can learn to bob and weave, and to deliver punishing blows, and when it comes to self defense that’s all very important,” says Jerry Bola, who has practiced martial arts for nearly four decades and is creator of the Martial Art Extreme DVD training program.
“But what is perhaps even more important is the confidence that comes with martial arts training. That confidence alone is often enough to help you stand up to bullies without ever actually fighting them.”
Bullying doesn’t just present momentary problems for young people. It can create serious health concerns, including physical injury, social and emotional distress, and even death, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Victims are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and poor school adjustment, the CDC reports, and bullies themselves are at increased risk for substance use, academic problems, and violence later in adolescence and adulthood.
Bola offers a few tips for parents of children who face harassment at school or on the playground:
• Let the bullied child know you support them. It’s important for children to know you will listen to them and do all you can to help them. Counselors often remind parents that they shouldn’t place blame on the child by asking questions such as, “Did you do something that might have made them bully you?” That wrongly puts the blame on the victim.
• Tell the child they can be assertive without being violent. Bullies tend to prey on those they can easily push around, emotionally or physically. That’s why it’s important to let them know they can’t push you around, Bola says. This is where the confidence that martial arts training provides plays a significant role. “Children who know they can defend themselves if it comes to that can much more easily look a bully in the eye and brush off their taunts without letting things escalate,” he says. “They are able to stay calm as they speak to the bully.”
• Encourage them to report the problem. If the bullying is happening at school, the child should let a teacher, school administrator or other adult know. The parent can also contact someone at the school to discuss what is happening so action can be taken.
Getting your child involved in an activity that they can become good at – playing baseball, learning a musical instrument, joining a swim team – can also serve to help improve their confidence and self-esteem, Bola says.
He, of course, is a big believer in martial arts as one such option.
“It gets you in shape physically and mentally,” Bola says. “As you transform your body, you’ll also transform your mind to be more focused, more disciplined and more aware. You’ll build the confidence to know you have what it takes not only to stand up against bullies, but to overcome any challenge in life.”
About Jerry Bola
Jerry Bola, a martial arts instructor, is the creator of Martial Art Extreme, a DVD training program designed to help people build confidence, deal with bullies, lose weight and stay fit. Bola has practiced martial arts for nearly 40 years. He previously worked as a correctional officer, but now is a real estate agent and building contractor when he’s not giving martial arts instruction.
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4 Ways The Nation’s Mood
Influences The Car You Drive
In the mood for something a little sportier the next time you buy a car?
A lot of other people may be also. It seems that as goes the nation’s social mood, so go the types of vehicles we demand from the automobile industry.
And at least for the moment, that mood is optimistic, as evidenced by the surging stock market.
“When the social mood is trending positively, people want higher levels of horsepower and speed, and automakers respond,” says Murray Gunn, head of global research for Elliott Wave International (www.elliottwave.com) and a contributing author to Socionomic Studies of Society and Culture.
“Today, that trend is apparent in super-fast cars with ever-larger engines.”
Gunn says the connection between social mood and what we drive is just one example of socionomic theory, which holds that we have it all wrong if we think that events affect the nation’s mood. Instead, it’s the opposite – our collective mood affects events and trends; or in this case, auto manufacturing.
Here are four ways that Gunn says the social mood impacts what we see motoring about on the nation’s highways:
“The history of the automobile, with all the changes in styles and performance, is also a history of our national mood,” Gunn says. “America’s highs and lows have been reflected in what we drive, all the way back to the Model T.”
About Murray Gunn
Murray Gunn is the Head of Global Research at Elliott Wave International (www.elliottwave.com) and a contributing author to the recent book Socionomic Studies of Society and Culture, an Amazon No. 1 bestseller in social theory. After earning his master’s degree in economics, Murray went straight into fund management in 1991. He worked for several firms as a fund manager in global bonds, currencies and stocks. Murray then joined HSBC Bank as Head of Technical Analysis. A published author (Trading Regime Analysis), he has served on the board of the Society of Technical Analysts (UK), and delivered lectures on the Elliott Wave Principle to students at Queen Mary University and Kings College London.
Choosing interior paint colors for your home can be overwhelming. No one wants to spend the time, energy and money painting a room only to end up hating the color. Not to mention the many different color choices and paint type to choose from! You can’t just choose the color gray because there are thousands of shades of gray to choose from!
So how do you know which colors are right for your home? I spent a month deciding on paint colors for our new home so take your time deciding what’s right. It’s been 3 years since we bought and painted our home and I still love our colors.
I recommend our home’s paint colors to friends and family and those that ask for my help staging their home. Paint is the easiest way to transform a space so if you hate that red wall in your living room, then just paint it! Our last home had more tan/brown paint colors but it still sold in less than 2 days for the asking price so there’s proof that paint can make a huge difference in how your home looks and feels and is especially important when it comes time to sell your house.
Creating an inspiration board is different than a Pinterest board. I made my inspiration board by collecting my color swatches, inspirational home decor pictures and attached everything to a physical board as the reference for our home.
I was so excited to make my inspiration board that I had it on display at our house warming party. My friends laughed that I went though the trouble of making an inspiration board, but guess what? That’s what designers do!
If you’ve seen any HGTV house flipping shows, the designer always presents a visual for the home owner with the project colors, furniture ideas, etc. An inspiration board puts your ideas in one place so you can easily see how things will flow and work out.
Now that you have a few tips to help you choose colors for your home, I’m sharing the paint colors in our home (including painted furniture and cabinets)!
-->>Go here to tour our home and see the full list of paint colors!<<--==============================
