Community Empowerment Series 2014

Our children are our future leaders, we have to empower them.

St. Johns County, Florida is listed as the number one school district in the state of Florida. They are also home to The Community Empowerment Series.

St. Augustine High School, on Saturday March 29th, will be the place to be!

Starting at 9:00am will be National speakers and authors that teachers, parents, students and the entire community will be learning from about topics that are important today.

These topics are:

Bullying, cyberbullying, cyber safety, stranger danger, body image and peer pressure.

This event is FREE to the public!  Online registration is now open!

Words Wound: Delete Cyberbullying and Make Kindness Go Viral

Order today!

By Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja

"Just when you think no one understands, someone does. Words Wounds will open dialogue across the country and the world! Drs. Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja share their years of experience and research of the depths of cyberbullying, to give you concrete solutions and tools to navigate today's digital society. Every parent needs to purchase this book for their pre-teen and teen today. Especially in today's society, we need to equip our children with the knowledge and resources they need to combat the underbelly of the cyberspace. Words Wound offers teens helping teens and sound advice and information that other teens will relate to." 

- Sue Scheff, Parent and Cyber-Advocate

Cyberbullying happens every day. Harsh words and damaging photos exchanged through texts, email, or social media can result in humiliation, broken friendships, punishment at school, and even legal prosecution.

In some cases, online harassment has contributed to teen suicide. Faced with this frightening problem, parents, educators, and teens are looking for information and advice. Many books have been written for adults about what cyberbullying is and what to do about it, but nothing has been written specifically for teens to help them to protect themselves and their peers.

Written by the foremost experts in cyberbullying prevention and reviewed by teens, this book provides practical strategies for those who are being cyberbullied, seeing cyberbullying, or who just want to do something to help make their schools a safer and more respectful place. The book includes dozens of real-life stories from those who have experienced cyberbullying, including many who have risen above it to make a positive difference in their schools.

In short, "Words Wound" helps students to be the primary agents of change to "delete cyberbullying and make kindness go viral." Are you ready to join the movement?

Order on Amazon today!

Truce: Cyber Kindness

A group of Marin Co teens have started TRUCE to promote Cyber-Kindness.

We support kindness in general, but cyber-bullying is so hard to look away from, so we started TRUCE:

T: Tolerance
R: Respect
U: Understanding
C: Compassion
E: Empathy

National Bullying Prevention Month: How Cyber-Gossip Can Lead to Bullying

In today’s internet age, gossip can be spread at lightning speed to hundreds, thousands or millions of people. The new “party line” is cyberspace where millions of people can all access the same information instantaneously. Just get on your computer, iphone, ipad or blackberry and let the rumors fly.

Here are 10 ways people (including kids) can us new technology to rapidly spread gossip in (in no particular order).

1. Email – One way to spread a rumor quickly is to send an email to all the contacts in your account, except the one the rumor is about, of course. Then they can forward it to all their contacts and on it goes from there. You better hope they delete your name when they forward it, or you might get blamed for starting it.
2. Facebook – Post your gossip on facebook and all your friends will know about it instantly. If they “like” it, comment on it or repost it, all their friends will see it too. Pretty soon you’ve got the rumor spreading quickly.
3. Myspace – Another social networking sight great for gossiping is Myspace. Post that rumor on a bulletin or your group’s message board and watch it spread like wildfire.
4. Twitter – You can tweet a rumor and all your Twitter followers will know your juicy gossip in 140 characters or less. They can re-tweet it to all their followers and in no time the gossip is flying through cyberspace.
5. Blogs – Some people love to spread gossip through their blogs. Even unintentional rumors are sometimes started by bloggers.
6. Website – You won’t believe some of the stuff you find posted on websites, and you shouldn’t either. There are whole websites put on the web just for the purpose of spreading misinformation. Always remember to check their sources.
7. YouTube – If you have a registered YouTube account you can upload an unlimited number of videos. If you have a video of someone doing something dubious, this is the best way to spread that rumor to millions of viewers.
8. Comments – A great way to anonymously spread gossip is to post a comment on a website, blog or YouTube video. You can log in under an assumed username and say all kinds of outrageous things without revealing your identity.
9. Chat rooms – Another anonymous way to spread rumors are internet chat rooms. You can start with an offhand comment and embellish it as you go.
10. Texting – If you see or hear something juicy to gossip about, you can send a text message to all your friends. That will get the thumbs flying as the rumor gets spread.

The new social media available has taken gossiping to a whole new level. Unfortunately this can lead to cyber bullying and be very traumatizing to vulnerable people. Celebrities and politicians are easy targets for internet gossip and careers are ruined by unintended tweets. Everyone should use the new technology responsibly, but many abuse their newfound privileges. Be careful what you put out into cyberspace or it may come back to haunt you and always check the sources of what you see or read. Chances are it’s just more cyber-gossip.

Source: Internet Providers
Be an educated parent, you will have safer teens.

Join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for more information and educational articles on parenting today's teenagers.

National Bullying Prevention Month

Charleigh and Justin Gere "Stand" http://www.willustand.com Help this message reach schools all across the nation and worldwide during October's National Bullying Prevention Month. Using hashtags #willUstand and #StandtheAnthem, please share generously.

NOBullying.com The Movement Against Bullying

From NOBullying.com About Us:

Nobullying.com is an online forum aimed at educating, advising, counselling and all importantly, helping to stop bullying, in particular, cyber bullying.

Although we at Nobullying.com work closely with and are delighted to gain the insight of many professionals including psychologists, teachers and other experts, we really cherish the input and experiences of parents and children of all ages, on this topic.

Parents, you, your opinions and feedback on points of interest, news and events are so important to Nobullying.com.  You are living the daily struggle, if you have a child who is the victim of cyber bullying.  We don’t make this statement in a flippant way.  Nobullying.com has been established by parents and as such, although we may not have had the exact same experiences as you, we do know where you are coming from.  Like you we worry constantly as to whether our child is the victim of cyber bullying or maybe he/she could be involved in cyber bullying through peer pressure.  Either way, we want to find an answer to an awful problem which has resulted in the death of teenagers and ruined the lives of many more.

Feel free to Contact Us anytime if you want to experience share, or offer up some tips and advice that you found useful.

Children and teenagers, if you have been the victim of cyber bullying please talk to your parents, your teachers or your school psychologist/nurse.  Remember, we all want what’s best for you and truly want to help.  It is not uncommon for kids to bully through peer pressure, especially with cyber bullying. No doubt if you are being bullied, in any way, the bully or bullies have warned you not to tell but guess what, that’s what bullies do.  Talk to your parents, your teachers, or a senior person in your school.  Don’t ever forget you are an amazing young person with a great future ahead of you, so start today and set yourself free from bullying.  There are thousands like you, all anxious about making that first great step, why not inspire them.

We are always looking for people to share their stories – if you want to provide a written article – do contact us via our quick fill in form. Do please note we will need your parents approval first if under 18 years.

Educators, you work with students, parents psychologists, victims, bullies and have good and bad experiences from every angle.  You know the sadness suffered by victims of bullying but you also know the joy and happiness felt, when, in many cases with your help, an awful situation is positively resolved.  Unfortunately, as you know, it can at times, be very difficult to pick up on bullying and even more difficult to truly resolve it.  However, as professionals who see bullying from all sides, please share with us your experiences and knowledge.  We really do want to give you a forum which will allow you help not just those in your school.

If you have some time to share some advice and guidance for others – we would love to take even 15 minutes of your time to answer a few questions by email and we will publish this on the website. Someone maybe looking for an answer you can provide.  Reach us here on our contact us page today.

As a professional psychologist or psychiatrist with knowledge in the area, share with us your experience and we will gladly display your profile and details on our site, which will be visited by thousands of people every week, concerned about their child’s safety, whether or not they are being bullied, whether or not their child actually is a bully and if they should seek counselling for their child.  Your expertise is more than appreciated, for more info click Here.

Please remain connected to our Cyber bullying-proof social media accounts for more information and tips to say no to bullying.