Bullying & Special Needs: Helping Vulnerable Kids

Serious bullying affects up to 35% of children by 8th grade. This percentage is even higher for kids with special needs.

Join us on March 24th in West Los Angeles to learn how help our kids with special needs recognize and respond appropriately to bullying.

The symposium will help educators, parents, and professionals who work with people affected by special needs.

Curt Widhalm and Not-the-Target are joining forces to help the educators, parents, and professionals learn (and experience) what kids with special needs live with when they are bullied. The 1/2 day seminar is broken into three parts:

Bullying – Applies to both the general population and special needs

Special Needs -Experience the world of a person with special needs through interactive activities

Helping to put an end to special needs bullying

Our goal is to help adults to help kids:

-Recognize thoughts/emotions common in the bullying cycle

-Learn the simple 4-step process that applies to all bullying situations

-Experience what kids with special needs go through every day

-Learn targeted responses, based on need, to help your kids respond to peer aggression

Cost is $20 per person before February 15th and $40 thereafter. Reservations close on March 20th. Payment is due at registration and may be made in cash or check.

REGISTER online

(space is limited)

T(w)eenage Parenting #10: Mirror, Mirror...

The social changes associated with being a t(w)een are difficult enough, but the physical aspects of growth can create problems, too.  Growth for t(w)eens naturally occurs starting from the extremities and working toward the center of the body, resulting in a cruel biological design of larger hands, feet, ears, and noses.  Additional hormones can stimulate changes to metabolism, which can result in the body creating new fat stores or other awkward physical changes.  All of this occurs at a time when t(w)een media and friendships emphasize ideal body shapes.  How do t(w)eens cope with all of this?

Learning to Worry

T(w)eens today are encouraged to worry about their bodies.  TV shows, movies, magazines, and the internet constantly reinforce the idea that being thin is necessary to being a great person.  If it’s not messages about being skinny, t(w)eens are receiving more input about being overweight, too.  As health officials and government agencies pressure schools to help fight against childhood obesity rates, these messages get passed along to the students, too. 

T(w)eenage Parenting #9: Homework

The path through adolescence is paved with changes.  Along with the physical, social,  and psychological changes, the education system changes for your t(w)eens.  By extension, this means that things will change for parents, too.  Once past elementary school, the schoolwork changes not only in difficulty, but volume as well.  T(w)eens each have their own ways to adapt to this additional stress.

Warning: Science Ahead

The human brain takes about 25 years to fully develop, although it reaches about 90% of it’s maximum size by the age of six. Most head growth after this time is actually the thickening of the skull, not the expansion of the brain. Changes starting at about age twelve explain many t(w)een behaviors.  At this time, the brain begins a massive rewiring project, starting near the brain stem (the area of the brain that regulates most body functions responsible for living, such as breathing and blood circulation) and moving toward the prefrontal cortex (the front area of the brain responsible for decision making and risk evaluation).  Not surprisingly, areas that become rewired first tend to function better earlier than areas that are rewired later during the process.

T(w)eenage Parenting #8: A Sobering Conversation

In the eyes of many t(w)eens’ parents, drugs and alcohol seem to be everywhere.  And if parents are noticing the exposure, it’s probably a safe bet that the t(w)eens are noticing it, too.  It doesn’t even have to be direct exposure to drugs and alcohol.  Take Twilight for example, which is a movie geared to t(w)eens.  Edward tells Bella that she “is (his) brand of heroin.”  Knowing that t(w)eens are in an ever-present state to act more grown up, imagine what they are being exposed to while watching more mature movies.

How bad is it?

In a word: bad.  The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Colombia University calls adolescent substance use “America’s #1 Health Problem.”  They estimate that over 90% of people addicted to substances started using before age 18.  Further, they estimate that 28% of the population with substance use disorders started using before age 15 and 75% of high school students had used addictive substances at least once before graduation.

T(w)eenage Parenting #7: Level the Playing Field

Every day where we work, we see our young students struggling with the transition from home to school. They're all wonderful kids, but some can't share easily or listen in a group.  Some have impulse control problems and have trouble keeping their hands to themselves; others don't always see that actions have consequences; a few suffer terribly from separation anxiety.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis  & Erika Christakis, MEd, MPH

Harvard Professors

A child’s job is to play

Play is a kid’s thing.  T(w)eens hang out.  They go to friend’s houses.  They call it whatever it needs to be called so that way they distance themselves from being a kid.  No matter the name, it’s important for t(w)eens to continue to have unstructured time, with or without friends.  A combination of both is even better.

T(w)eenage Parenting #6: Video games (Part 1 of....many)

I don’t remember the last time that I met a t(w)een that didn’t play video games.  In fact, I previously ran a social skills group where we used video game parties as a reward for the group behaving well and following directions for an entire month.  We more or less stopped with these rewards when the kids kept complaining that they had better video games at home.

Moving away from “baby” things

Being a t(w)een, in many aspects, is a constant reminder of not being old enough to do many things.  It is no longer cool to participate in activities designed for their chronological age, so they begin to engage in activities that are geared for a slightly older target audience.  In the video game world, this is often seen as the transition in the games that they play.  Super Mario Bros. and Pokemon come to be replaced by Halo, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto. 

T(w)eenage Parenting #5: Moms & Dads & Relationships

A major milestone of reaching adulthood is realizing that you do things the way your parents have done them (Note: unofficial milestone, this isn't in any developmental psychology books that I have read).  This milestone is highlighted in movies and TV shows during times when a main character does something out of character, sighs, and mutters, "I'm becoming my mother/father." A steady diet of these shows could lead you to the conclusion that it is a horrible thing to turn out like your parents. It's not just TV where this occurs. As adults in the real world, we have these realizations, too. What did our parents do wrong that it is so evil to become them?

Everything I learned…

Good, bad, or otherwise, our adult lives are shaped by our parents. Our views and the rules we make up about how the world works are generally formed during childhood.  Unless a dramatic shift in your life causes things to change, you tend to carry these rules into adulthood.  This holds true from things as diverse as the way socks should be folded to how relationships work.