Thursday, December 6, 2012

Monitoring Your Child On Social Media? Great Solution for Parents

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com


Honestly Social is a great tool for busy parents! Monitor your kids’ Facebook, protect
their reputation, and prevent bullying! Sign up now for 50% off! http://bit.ly/TO8964


Monday, November 5, 2012

Obama or Romney: Who will more likely end bullying?

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com


ASK YOURSELF: WHICH CANDIDATE WILL REALLY CARE ABOUT REDUCING BULLYING IN OUR SCHOOLS?

Read a full report from my friends at the Bully Project

http://thebullymovie.tumblr.com/

Very interesting reading!

Monday, October 29, 2012

Why Do We Forget to Talk About Real Solutions When Talking About The Bullying Epidemic?

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com



Several years ago, my family was impacted by bullying. Because we were able to find resources and solutions, we were able to move beyond the issue and thrive. After that, I realized that not everyone knows where to find solutions. October is National Bullying Prevention month and a time of year that we see instances of bullying spike in classrooms and communities. Nearly one in four children has been the victim of bullying[1] and 85 percent of the time no one intervenes to help[2].
Bullying is not a normal part of childhood and can no longer be tolerated in any form or excused as harmless teasing. As parents and educators, we are the agents of change to bullying behavior and the advocates for safer classrooms and communities for our children. We need to talk about the problem before it gets out of hand, before we see another tormented child on the evening news and before it’s too late for the victim. We need to understand the problem permeates every community and affects every family.
Most importantly, we need to talk more about real solutions.
A recent Harris Interactive survey of parents commissioned by Sears reveals that 73 percent believe parents are responsible for the prevention of bullying, 65 percent believe that teachers and schools are responsible and nearly 40 percent look to law enforcement for bully prevention[3].
Prevention doesn’t lie with one group, but rather society as a whole. Parents of the 13 million children who suffer from an acute bullying problem need a combination of stronger awareness programs, prevention through solutions that can be implemented at the home and school level and effective rehabilitation for bullies to reform their behavior. Further, we (parents and educators) need to start addressing acute bullying situations with effective solutions in the moment.
Prevention starts at home and continues at school. Parents should practice role playing exercises with their child so they know how to safely respond to a bully. The bullied child should be equipped with responses and actions to remove him or herself from the situation while still signaling that the bully’s actions will not be tolerated. Equally important, bystanders should be trained to safely intervene and adults who work with children should be required to receive training on bullying intervention.
If you suspect your child is being bullied, the first thing you should do is to make sure your child is safe, that he or she feels protected and that you are listening. Ignoring bullying does not work. Second, get the facts and document the incident. If there is even one episode where your child has been affected, parents should have a conversation with the principal, staff or teacher who was in charge when your child was bullied. From there, develop a plan to quickly solve the problem with your school.
Studies show that schools with anti-bullying programs that include solutions like those found via sears.com/TeamUp can experience up to a 50 percent decrease in bullying. A well-orchestrated school system includes prevention, reporting, victim support, consequence protocols, policies and reform/rehabilitation. Maintaining these systems is key to creating bully-free cultures in our schools.
In the simplest terms, whenever one child has demonstrated that the behavior from another child is making them uncomfortable or has asked that child to stop the behavior for the same reason and the child does not, on the second occasion it is bullying. Period.

Bullying is not a rite of passage, as many of us grew up to believe. But changing a culture and belief system can be hard. There must be an attitudinal shift to recognize that bullying can be solved. Solving the problem starts with access to information and empowerment to address the issue head on.
 
Earlier this year, Sears launched Team Up to Stop Bullying as the first bullying solutions and services coalition from a major retailer to provide immediate solutions that parents and schools can implement today. The program offers expertise from more than 70 leading bullying solutions organizations to help children who have been bullied find answers, give parents effective ways to prevent and resolve bullying and guide educators on how to establish bully reform programs at their school.
Team Up to Stop Bullying is providing access and empowerment and delivering real solutions to communities around the nation. As a nation, we have successfully changed widely held attitudes in the past and built a stronger and better place for our children. I believe we can do it again. Please do your part today.

Marie Newman
Bullying Solutions Family Advocate, Author, Mother and Business Owner, Director of Team Up to Stop Bullying.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com



NEW SURVEY REVEALS PROGRESS IN BULLYING PREVENTION
Sears Supports National Bullying Prevention Month in October with Savings Offer to Benefit Anti-bullying Charities
           
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., (Oct. 5, 2012) – A new survey from Sears shows that 93 percent of parents will tell their child not to ignore a bully and 60 percent advise them to tell a teacher about a bullying incident. These findings may indicate that anti-bullying awareness campaigns are having an impact, according to leading anti-bullying expert, Marie Newman, who partnered with Sears as managing director of Team Up to Stop Bullying.

Sears, through its Team Up to Stop Bullying initiative, announced the findings at the start of October, National Bullying Prevention month, to cast light on the pervasive issue, share solutions with parents, educators, children and communities and help put an end to bullying.

"The survey shows greater accountability when it comes to bullying, as well as its prevention. Of the parents surveyed, 73% believe that parents are responsible for the prevention of bullying, 65% believe that teachers and schools are responsible, while others believe that law enforcement and the greater community should be responsible for preventing bullying," said Newman. “Prevention doesn’t lie with one group, but rather with society as a whole. We’re encouraged by these results because they show progress toward finding the right solutions. That’s where Team Up to Stop Bullying comes in.”

During the month of October, Sears customers can shop to stop bullying by downloading a savings pass online at sears.com/TeamUp for 15 percent off on purchases of apparel, footwear and fine jewelry. When customers use the savings pass, Sears will donate five percent of their purchase (up to $50,000 total) to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America who will distribute part of the funds to charitable organizations affiliated with Team Up to Stop Bullying.

“Sears has always been focused on the American family and there is nothing more important to our employees and customers than the safety of our children,” said Lana Krauter, senior vice president and president of Sears Apparel. “This new data sheds more light on the need to help connect real solutions to the people who need them now.”

Sears launched Team Up to Stop Bullying in August as the first solutions-and service-based anti-bullying coalition, launched by a major retailer, to provide immediate solutions that parents and schools can implement today. The program offers expertise from more than 70 coalition members to help children who have been bullied find answers, give parents effective ways to prevent and resolve bullying and guide educators on how to establish bully reform programs at their school.
Additional findings from the Harris Interactive survey include:
·       Nearly two in five (39 percent) of parents whose child has been bullied says that local law enforcement is responsible for the prevention of bullying
·       Sixty-nine percent of parents believe that counseling a bully to understand the negative impact on his or her own life is most effective in reforming bullying behavior; 58 percent believe that counseling a bully to understand the negative effects on the bullied child’s life is most effective
·       Seventy percent of parents believe that developing a plan with their child’s school is the best way to stop a child from being bullied

Visit sears.com/TeamUp for more information and to find solutions that work for every family.
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Zeno Group from September 26th – 28th, 2012 among 2,523 adults ages 18 and older, among which 736 are parents of children age 17 and younger. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Danny Cohn, Zeno Group.

About Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Sears, Roebuck and Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD), is a leading broadline retailer providing merchandise and related services and is part of SHOP YOUR WAY, a social shopping experience where members have the ability to earn points and receive benefits across a wide variety of physical and digital formats through ShopYourWay.com.  Sears, Roebuck offers its wide range of home merchandise, apparel and automotive products and services through more than 2,000 Sears-branded and affiliated stores in the United States and Canada, which includes over 810 Full-line and more than 1,270 specialty stores in the U.S.   Sears, Roebuck also offers a variety of merchandise and services through sears.com, landsend.com, and specialty catalogs. Sears, Roebuck offers consumers leading proprietary brands including Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard and Lands' End -- among the most trusted and preferred brands in the U.S.  The company is the nation's largest provider of home services, with more than 11 million service calls made annually. For more information, visit the Sears, Roebuck website at www.sears.com or the Sears Holdings Corporation website at www.searsholdings.com.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

"Apple Does Not Care About Small Business"

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com

Wow! With the iCloud outage at Apple growing toward 36 hours (1.5 business days), I have had the occasion to speak to several customer service agents in their Apple Care group. Each of them indicated they were apologetic about the iCloud outage that many Apple customers are experiencing, but also indicated that Apple users "should not be using iCloud for business use and we do not have an 'ETA' on when it will be fixed."  Even when I escalated the complaint  up a few levels, I was met with the same response. Amazing. 

In fact, the Apple Care agents said that the Apple service contract does not guarantee against outages and "should not be used for business."

Fascinating.

As an aside, Small Business in the US as a percentage of our GDP:

Small business owners "Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll. • Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years. • Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP."( source: SBA.gov)

So, Apple is recommending that 44% of private employers should not use their products?

Fascinating.

As the leader of two non-profits and an owner of a small business, I rely heavily on the 9 pieces of Apple hardware in my home office. Further, the countless applications and types of software are indispensable to those organizations. 

Further, this is the third major outage iCloud has has in 9 months. As all of you iCloud users will remember, we as consumers, were forced to move from MobileMe to iCloud by Apple earlier this year.

To be clear, Apple's sin in this episode is not the outage itself , rather it is the arrogance attached to the following actions:

1. Releasing a faulty and ill-tested product prematurely to make more money
2. Communicating to small business owners that they should not be using their products for business when clearly they are developed, made and marketed with small business in mind
3. Not prioritizing fixing an outage and lying on the systems support page about timing to resolve the issue.

I have been a huge fan of Apple for many years, but am ridiculously disappointed and frustrated to the point of moving all of my business and organizational needs to other 
technology leaders.

Other small business owners please sound off.




Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Sears launches Team Up to Stop Bullying: a first-ever national coalition of 55 leading bullying solutions partners - solutions for kids, parents and schools all on one website





HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., Aug. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents of the 13 million children who suffer from an acute bullying problem[1] can now find solutions at their fingertips. Sears has announced the launch of Team Up to St
op Bullying to address America's bullying issue, which spikes as students return to classrooms and playgrounds. Team Up to Stop Bullying is the first solutions- and service-based anti-bullying coalition striving to provide immediate solutions that parents and schools can implement today.
"Team Up to Stop Bullying provides much-needed resources to parents, children, educators and communities and will help Americans understand that bullying is a not a normal part of childhood," said Marie Newman, bullying solutions author and managing director of Team Up to Stop Bullying. "Every seven minutes a child is bullied at school and studies show that schools with an anti-bullying program see a decrease in bullying up to 50 percent. While there isn't one fix to every bullying problem, there are solutions and services that work. Now, for the first time, there is one simple place to connect to those solutions at sears.com/TeamUp."
Sears Team Up to Stop Bullying initiative aims to connect those in the throes of a bullying problem to valuable resources with solutions and services provided by a nationwide coalition of more than 55 organizations. The Team Up to Stop Bullying website, sears.com/TeamUp, provides easy access to hundreds of solutions and services for parents and schools

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

BULLY Movie Tshirts Now available only at Sears.com

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com

BULLY TEE SHIRTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!!! Woohoo!! A portion of the sales will go to The Bully Project: 1 Million Kids initiative to bring students to see the film for free. Get yours here:http://www.sears.com/hanes-bully-movie-t-shirt/p-033VA51166101P?prdNo=13&blockNo=13&blockType=G13

"Bully" Movie T-Shirt- Hanes-Clothing-Young Men's-Shirts
www.sears.com

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Marie Newman and Team Up Visit The White House

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com

Team Up (represented by Marie Newman) Visits The White House! Great day for Team Up To Stop Bullying on Friday. Arne Duncan and Valerie Jarrett hosted a private screening of the great documentary, Bully and a panel discussion on bullying on 4/20. Team Up was one of several anti-bullying and supportive organizations in attendance. Ms. Jarrett enthusiastically announced that 2 pieces of legislation designed to protect our children in school were signed by President Obama earlier that day. So proud to be working with Sears new initiative, Team Up To Stop Bullying and with our partners, The Bully Project and 1 Million Kids! lhttp://www.marketwatch.com/story/bully-screens-at-the-white-house-moments-after-president-announces-support-for-anti-bullying-bills-2012-04-20

Thursday, January 19, 2012

We Must Stop Bullying: Parents Are Taking Their Lives As Well

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com www.SolutionsforBullying.com

A harsh and extremely unsettling headline, right?  Unfortunately it is true : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlo-thomas/bullying-claims-another-v_b_1214436.html

This type of double tragedy simply should not be.  In this deeply saddening case, this terrific young man, only 14 years old, took his own life after being bullied for a long time. Then adding to that horrible tragedy, his noble and inspirational father, who was diligently working in the anti-bullying movement on a number of fronts, took his own life because he simply could not make sense of a world that continues allow bullying to happen.

While my co-author and I are constantly struck by the fact that literally everyone we meet or speak to casually or formally is very supportive of the anti-bullying movement, but unfortunately, they do not feel empowered. Well, guess what, there is good news: you are officially empowered today!

The better news is: every American has the power to do something in their own community.  If your school does not have an anti-bullying policy that includes prevention, victim support, bully rehabilitation and teachable consequences, help them build it. You can start on our site (www.solutionsforbullying.com) or start anywhere, just do it.

If you see bullying, report it, or if it is safe, intervene and stop it.

If your community, child's sports team/association or park district condones bullying, speak up and ask for change.

If you see parents ignoring these issues, convince them as to why we must stop this cycle.

Most important: the solution starts with you. There are many real solutions out there (not just ours). Use your search engine and find some.  Then, commit to addressing bullying and realize you are saving lives.

Now, go out there, find the right solutions for your school or community and save lives. Thank you!


When Your Child Is Being Bullied: Real Solutions For Parents, Educators and Other Professionals, is
a book filled with plans, tools, resources and checklists for anyone who wants to stop bullying in their communities. Available  on www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com or www.solutionsforbullying.com

Friday, January 13, 2012

Why would you bully a child; let alone this child? Kathleen Edward, Trenton, MI

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com http://www.solutionsforbullying.com/

Why would you bully a child:  let alone this child?  Kathleen Edward, Trenton, MI

We send our deepest condolences to the family of Kathleen Edward.  The sweet, beautiful, kind  child from Trenton, MI lost her battle with Huntington’s disease recently.  I have seen what this terrible illness can do to a child as we lost a young girl to the same disease at our church a few years ago. 

I am just baffled as to why anyone, let alone, an adult would choose to bully a child, but why this child?     Kathleen Edward’s neighbor Jennifer Petkov felt that it was ok to bully a terminally ill child because of a family dispute.  It is truly perplexing. Bullying is an anti-social behavior at any age.  Often people look at the victim as having a “problem”.  There is nothing wrong with the victim, bullying is the problem. And, the problem is with the bully, not the victim. In this case it could not be any clearer – the bully has a very serious problem with herself. 

There is never a "reason" for bullying. Bullies choose to bully and typically have unhealthy motivations in their own life for doing so.    Jennifer Petkov felt she had a good reason to bully Kathleen because her children were not invited to play in a bounce house at the Edward’s home.  Jennifer Petkov was quoted on TV as saying she felt “personal satisfaction” in bullying Kathleen.    

It is so important that we nip bullying in the bud at a very young age so that we have fewer adult bullies and criminals in our world.  We need to stand up to people who bully, regardless of their age.  Bystanders play a key role in the bully/bystander/bullied triad. If bystanders call out the bully as wrong or inappropriate, it is less likely they will continue. However, most parents do not teach their children to defend their friends. Further, children are taught to stay out of it.  While bystander children should not put themselves in harms way, they can report bullies or tell their parents.  I am glad that the people of Trenton, MI and the world stood by Kathleen Edward and her family.  I am just so sorry it had to happen in the first place.

Kathleen, I hope you are having the most wonderful day in heaven with your mother today and always.  May you rest in peace. 

Sunday, January 1, 2012

New Year, New Laws on Bullying

SolutionsforBullying@gmail.com http://www.solutionsforbullying.com/

Illinois is just one of several states with beefed up bullying laws going into place in 2012.  House Bill 3281, sponsored by state Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon) goes into effect today and allows schools to suspend or expel a student who threatens another student or a school employee via the Internet.  The only issue is that suspensions do not always work.  As we discuss in our book, suspensions are sometimes just a week to stay home, play video games and do nothing.  Perhaps requiring the bully and parents to do some research on bullying, its effects and the reasons why a bully would bully might just lead to some introspective thinking on behalf of the bully and their family.  Expulsion is definitely a harsher punishment to bullying that will get some attention by the bully and parents of the bully.

"Bullying no longer takes place only at school," Kay told the Belleville News-Democrat of the new law. "Bullies use the Internet to follow their victim home and harass them through social networking. This bill gives school boards and administrators a way to deal with online threats from students towards other students, faculty or anyone else."  Hopefully schools across the world will take a strong stance against cyber bullying in 2012.  If it happens online, it is happening at school.  Schools should also take a look at punishments for text bullying as well since the two are often done simultaneously.