Posts tagged bullying

I recently participated in an online bullying and cyber bullying conference for the anti-bullying advocacy organization called www.cybercitizen.org. I gave a live webinar presentation on elder bullying, also known as elder abuse.

I really enjoyed participating in this event and who like to take this opportunity to thank Brian and the organizers at cybercitizen for reaching out into communities and helping educate people on a full-spectrum of bullying topics which the conferenced helped raise awareness for.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to talk alittle about the topic of elder bullying: Some things you should know about elder abuse: Abuse can occur in many ways, most commonly through finanical manipulation and stealing, but also occurs from neglect, physical abuse such as beating or restraining, or emotional abuse such as teasing.

What may suprise some is to know that elder abuse is most commonly conducted by the adult children of these elderly persons. They may abuse their aging parents for many reasons, any of which is not accepatble of ocurse, as abuse is never justified. Some reasons though include difficult reactions to the emotional experience of their parents aging and the fear, guilt, confusion, and such that goes along with it.

Want to learn more about what I have to say on bullying and abuse topics? Check out my videos here: http://markdworkin.com/video-store/.

You may also be interested in these articles from my website: http://markdworkin.com/articles-problems-solutions/bullying-abuse-trauma/

I’m aware that when we talk about bullying and abuse we usually don’t think about the government and its role. However, it’s time to speak out against governmental abuse of our teenagers, and young men and women in their 20’s and 30’s. I am talking about our brave military heroes who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and God knows where else they will be fighting. You might ask, how can you consider this abuse when these people volunteered to serve their country?

Someone might think that this argument has merit, after all they knew that there was a war going on, and they knew that they would be in harm’s way. However, I don’t think there was any expectation that they would be sent back for many tours of duty in a war zone. I never served, so I can’t tell you firsthand what it feels like to be under threat 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But I worked at the Bronx VA medical center in the 70’s and the 80’s, and I can tell you that we were not equipped to handle our brave warriors who fought and were wounded in Vietnam. Instead, we were taught to look for signs that our combat veterans were trying to get service-connected disabilities so that they wouldn’t have to work. How’s that for caring? Starting with Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon, we threw our kids into a lot of fire. The only thing that has been reasonably helpful is that due to the war in Vietnam post-traumatic stress disorder became a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, and has since helped many people get the help they need and deserve.

Today we now have something 10 times worse than before. Not only do we have all volunteers from all branches of the military involved in dangerous combat situations, but we are pulling from the National Guard and the Reserves to go back time and time again to face the danger of being killed by a roadside bomb or direct fire. If this were not bad enough, consider how little the Veterans Administration is actually doing for our kids. In 2011, there were approximately 250,000 claims filed for post-traumatic stress disorder. I doubt that the Masters of the Veterans Administration, regardless of political party, will do much to serve this population, or give them their rightful disability pensions.

How can you send the child to a war zone 5, 6, 7, times and not expect him or her to come home severely psychologically scarred? I doubt that anyone in the National Guard ever expected to be called to duty in these kinds of situations. When you force someone to do something that may get them killed, and they are virtually powerless to protect themselves from our own government, it is abusive.

Take that example and then add to it. How many of our children who serve the country with integrity, respect, bravery, and loyalty have to come home in wooden boxes, or emotionally and physically broken? I know from my friends who still work at the VA that the needs of those who served are not being adequately met. Since my area is mental health I can only talk about those 250,000 who are not being well served. Every VA in the country should be hiring trainers in various forms of trauma treatment; and these trainers should be on staff until all mental health clinicians are competent in many forms of trauma treatment. But that costs money, and the government has already spent quite a bit on throwing them in line of fire, so why should they care about the suffering that comes afterwards when the government has no more use for our brave warriors?

This is the way it has been and this is the way it always will be. If you’re not making money for us for protecting our vital interests, why should we care about your well-being? We used you, and we don’t need you anymore. Go away. If this isn’t abuse on a massive scale then I don’t know what is.

By the way, I have a secret way of ending the war in Afghanistan. Would you like to know my secret?

• Institute the draft again, and I guarantee that within the year, the war will be over. Until that time let’s all wage a letter writing campaign, and the protest movement to demand that our government live up to the responsibilities of Abraham Lincoln. You may not know it but he started the Veterans Administration. The motto, “to care for he who has borne the battle,” must be reinstated, otherwise Lincoln’s vision will be nothing more than window dressing.
• If you want to fund the VA: make it illegal for CEOs of banks, and anyone who was bailed out in their social welfare system to take anything more than a one dollar salary, and no bonuses whatsoever. While we are at it, let’s throw out all for-profit lobbyists who advocate for their special-interest groups who make obscene amounts of money, and instead of funding the rich through laws that are bought and paid for by the lobbyists, let’s give the money to the Veterans Administration to help the kids who have been severely wounded while serving our great country. Without them these corporate criminals won’t be able to keep up their shenanigans.

If we can do this, imagine the emotional lives we could save. Also without funding the VA properly and without adequate care and attention for those who’ve served, imagine how many lives will be ruined forever. Think of how many many less children would turn to drugs and alcohol to quell their pain. Think of how many less domestic violence cases there would be. Imagine how many children of these brave warriors will not be traumatized by their fathers and mothers who suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Paul, members of Congress, where are your voices on the subject? Why are you not screaming out about this gross inequity. These are our children, not just mine, not just yours. Whoever is elected has a moral obligation to protect, defend, and help heal these brave boys and girls we have put in such danger. Where is your moral compass? Where are your ethics? Or are you only in this for the money?

This is a gross governmental abuse of our children and I personally hold every elected official responsible, as they serve US, they are supposed to represent US. Shame on all of them.

Another shooting? Really? This is really bumming me out. Glad my boys are passed high school, and past college as well. Why is this happening? I guess the most important question is: what can we do to stop it?

Parents, educators, legislators, and all concerned citizens need to come together and work out a plan for every school in America so that our kids can be safe. I grieve for the families who have lost their children through all the senseless violence that’s been occurring more and more frequently over the past few years. I’m enraged that there hasn’t been a plan of action that can be implemented in a flexible way so that each school can find a way to protect its own and so that they can talk to one another and compare notes, so to speak, on the best approaches.

I know people who are experts in disaster mental health and if Mr. Cuomo wishes to ask me I can direct him the right person who can give him a comprehensive plan to make sure our children are safe.

For God sakes let’s make this shooting the last one that ever happens in any one of our schools.

I can be contacted directly by phone: 516-731-7611 or email: mark@markdworkin.com
For more information you can also visit my website: www.markdworkin.com

With 4 min. left in the game the usually reliable Wes Welker, a football player on the New England Patriots dropped a pass. Had he caught the pass, it might have been a different ending to the game, but the Giants won. Being a Giants fan I was perfectly happy that he dropped the ball, but it painfully reminded me of times when I played ball as a kid and dropped the ball.

I hope Wes Welker isn’t subject to the fate that I was. I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950s and 60s, and playing sports for boys in that era was everything in terms of status and self-esteem. When I dropped the football in the park that we played in my teammates weren’t as forgiving as Mr. Welker’s teammates seemed to be.

I was subject to much ridicule and bullying. As I got older I became a good athlete and had status among my peers. Yet that day in the park still haunts me. I can hear the voices of the other kids and my team putting me down, calling me names, and pushing me around. That might’ve been okay if it ended there. However this was just the beginning of a few years of misery where I was bullied, and made to feel like crap.

Although I am happy that Wes dropped the ball, I hope he never had to go through the bullying and name-calling that I did. When I think about it, whether it’s just a pickup game in a park with some kids or the Super Bowl, playing the game or dropping the ball shouldn’t have anything to do with how you feel about yourself as a person.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Do you agree? Disagree? I’d like to know what you think.

I used to work for various institutions before I went into full-time private practice. I witnessed a lot of my colleagues who were picked on for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. Many of them were bright good-natured people. I could not understand why they were having so much trouble with their supervisors.

Bullying is something that we think of with kids and teenagers. But many others are affected by different forms of bullying. One common form these days happens in the workplace. Let me define what workplace bullying is. It’srepetitive, on-goingpatterns of at least one of the following, committed by one or more members in the workplace:

• Verbal abuse
• Behaviors intended to threaten, frighten, and/or embarrass others
• Disruptions/interferences that inhibit work productivity

I’m curious if others have been affected by the cruelty of supervisors or colleagues who trampled on you in order to get ahead. If you’ve been affected by workplace bullying you might get some ideas about how to help yourself by go to my website where you will find articles on workplace bullying and other topics at www.markdworkin.com

I hope this hasn’t happened to you, but if it has I hope that my ideas can be useful.

I read the paper every day. Many of the stories have to do with people hurting other people. Sometimes there are shootings, sometimes there are muggings, sometimes there are murders. But the thing that makes my blood boil is when I hear about other children who been picked on by bullies. Sometimes it’s at school, sometimes it’s while they’re playing, and sometimes it’s what we see on social media outlets.

Truly I don’t know which is the worst. I think they’re all pretty awful. Being the father grown sons I know what it’s like to raise boys to become men. I’m proud of how I have raised them. They’re now in their 20’s and doing really well. When they were young and growing up I spent a good deal of time teaching them the importance of respecting other people. When I would hear one of my boys talk badly about someone in their class I would sit down and tell them stories of what happens to me when I grew up. You see until I was 17 I was short and fat and I couldn’t defend myself. Growing up in the Bronx is not easy. I wish my father could have been there for me, but he was too busy trying to put food on the table. I know what it’s like to be bullied. I was called names, pushed around, and never knew how to fight back. I also had no one to go to who could help me figure out what to do.

As my boys grew my wife and I taught them good values. I knew it was like to be picked on and not be able to fight back. I decided that I would teach them the importance of talking things out and walking away from other kids who might want to hurt them. Back in my day we didn’t have computers, so cyber bullying wasn’t part of it. But kids passed notes to other kids in class, and more than once I had a kid pushed bubblegum into my hair. Trust me it wasn’t fun.

I don’t believe in fighting. Yet we live in a world where if we can’t talk with others, and work things out, bullies will start to pick on us. Walk away, talk your way out of a fight but if a fight begins there are no rules. I made sure that they had martial arts training in both became quite proficient in being able to protect themselves if they needed to. Fortunately it never came to that. The to the matter is, that when you teach martial arts you’re less likely to get into a fight that if you don’t know how to defend yourself.

I bring this up only because I know how it felt to be picked on and not know how to defend myself. There are many things that parents should be teaching their kids. Respect for everybody is one of them. If a parent doesn’t teach that, and his or her child becomes a bully, they should be severe consequences for both the bully and the parents. The bully should have to do a minimum of 100 hours of community service, the parents should be hauled before a judge and either fined or made to do community service. If are going to teach our kids how to live in a world and make it a peaceful one it has to start when the born. If that doesn’t happen it’s up to all parents and all teachers and all administrators in schools to create an atmosphere where bullying can’t occur; and if it does occur let’s make the consequences so severe that bullies will never hurt another child again. I don’t ever want to see another newspaper headline about a child or teenager committing suicide because the “system” failed them. The system starts with you, me, and every American.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Let’s stop bullying now

I hate bullies. When I was young I was a victim of many of them. They were the “cool kids” and I was short and fat. While I never thought about cutting (we didn’t know about this back in the 60’s. But I do know about hurting so badly that I wanted to end my life. My parents weren’t helpful. They were too busy with their lives. So when I came home crying at 14 (“Be a man and stop crying”), because they gave me the nickname Twaddles, it hurt so badly that I felt ashamed to go outside. I never got any help back then (help only started after my heart was broken 5 years later).

I’m 61 and I can tell everyone who cuts, or is a victim of bullying, that the boys who mocked and humiliated me didn’t do so well in life. A number are dead; some are recovering junkies, and some have menial jobs.

So take heart. You’ll get through this period. Keep remembering that there is a tomorrow where you have grown up, and healed the wounds of your childhood, like I healed mine.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday everyone.