{"id":1306,"date":"2011-01-04T18:06:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T22:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2023-04-11T15:17:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T19:17:05","slug":"sticks-stones-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/sticks-stones-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Sticks &#038; Stones &#038; &#8230;Words?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I got this notice in a Barnes &amp; Noble advertisement (along with links to anti-bullying books).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/NoSticksNoStones2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/NoSticksNoStones2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1307\" title=\"NoSticksNoStones2\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">OK, I know as a Martial Arts instructor and Self-Defense advocate I should be totally on board with the new Politically Correct drive to stop bullying, but <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>this just goes to far<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 I am very against this type of campaign.\u00a0 I have never been afraid of words, haven&#8217;t met one yet that could do me any real physical damage.\u00a0 Today our children are taught to treat words as dangerous tools, weapons capable of causing great personal injury (minus the bruising).\u00a0 Though in fairness I should note that the term bully is being used interchangeably with bullying and picking on.<\/p>\n\n\n<script>\r\n document.write('<hr style=\"width=75%; border-top: 2px solid #000; margin: auto;'>');\r\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We are officially living the in Bizarro word of <strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Fie%3DUTF8%26x%3D0%26ref_%3Dnb_sb_ss_sc_0_8%26y%3D0%26field-keywords%3Dseinfeld%26url%3Dsearch-alias%253Daps%26sprefix%3Dseinfeld&amp;tag=willingtonkar-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957\">Seinfeld<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=willingtonkar-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" alt=\"\"><\/span><\/em><\/strong>, Up is officially down, hot is now cold, sticks and stones won&#8217;t hurt you, and Men are the new Women.\u00a0 Hmmm&#8230;.\u00a0 As a society we are failing our youth by &#8230;wimpifying them!\u00a0 Some prefer the Pu..ification term but this is a family blog so will stick to Wimpification.\u00a0 How far can we turn away from reality before we are forced to face that which we pretend can be solved with a slogan.\u00a0 What is the point of this new campaign against bullies?\u00a0 Bullies exist and will continue to exist forever&#8230;period.\u00a0 Maybe tomorrow they will just speak in a nicer tone.\u00a0 So what is the point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Perhaps a better campaign would be &#8216;<em>Sticks and Stones Will Break Your Bones and Names Will <strong>Never<\/strong> Hurt You<\/em>&#8216;.\u00a0 Some moron forgot the <strong>Never<\/strong> and no one called him or her on it.\u00a0 I know I am being harsh and probably ruffling a few feathers, to bad.\u00a0 What we should be teaching our children is threefold; believe in yourself, stand up for yourself, and; keep things in perspective.\u00a0 I know some are saying&#8230;Huh?\u00a0 Let me explain.<\/p>\n\n\n<script>\r\n document.write('<hr style=\"width=75%; border-top: 2px solid #000; margin: auto;'>');\r\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Believe in yourself &#8211; Have some confidence in yourself.&nbsp; You do this by knowing who you are.&nbsp; Unfortunately many kids are brought up in such a void of morals and beliefs that they are encouraged to discover who they are, like they are lost?!&nbsp; So what is a child to do who is given no direction or sense of self?&nbsp; That&#8217;s right, listen to their peers.&nbsp; If their peers tell them they are great, well then they must be.&nbsp; If their peers tell them they are a loser, well they must be.&nbsp; The PC (politically correct) crowd like the former but not the later situation.&nbsp; The problem is not everyone can be great.&nbsp; Perhaps it would be better to raise our children know who they are so that others will not have that much effect on them.&nbsp; (Notice I said &#8216;that much&#8217; as I understand it is impossible to completely unaffected).&nbsp; But if the child (or adult) knows who they are and has a sense of their worth, they can knuckle down and get through this unpleasant chapter in their life (being bullied\/picked on).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Stand up for yourself &#8211; But what if the person doesn&#8217;t back down?!&nbsp; Good question.&nbsp; We all win and lose some fights, the important thing is how we walk out of the room (chin up or head down).&nbsp; I can speak from personal experience here; at a certain point it is much better to stand up for yourself.&nbsp; I advocate defending yourself anytime someone touches you in a threatening way, no hesitations, you take control of the situation.&nbsp; I am not advocating fighting over an insult or comment, take the source and ignore it.&nbsp; That leads us to the final point&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<script>\r\n document.write('<hr style=\"width=75%; border-top: 2px solid #000; margin: auto;'>');\r\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Keep things in perspective &#8211; I always ask my students this question &#8220;do you value this persons opinion?&#8221; they invariably say No!&nbsp; If you react to words then you must really value the opinion of the Bully&#8217;s opinion.&nbsp; Though if you do not believe in yourself (see the first point) you might just hold anything anyone says about you as a possible truth. But if you stand up for yourself by not being affected by mean spirited words you can walk out with your head held high, chin up.&nbsp; There are to many techniques to cover now on deflecting insults and such.<\/p>\n\n\n<script>\r\n document.write('<hr style=\"width=75%; border-top: 2px solid #000; margin: auto;'>');\r\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Bullying and &#8216;Picking-on&#8217; each other is a normal part of growing up.\u00a0 It is the ugly truth.\u00a0 Should we step in and engage kids when we can, yes but not at the risk of making them a bunch of wimps.\u00a0 There is an old movie, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/6300207919?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=willingtonkar-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=6300207919\"><strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Bells of St. Mary&#8217;s<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=willingtonkar-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=6300207919\" alt=\"\">, that shows the differences of how things have changed.\u00a0 In the movie Father O&#8217;Malley and Sister Benedict differ on how to handle the school wimp and the school bully.\u00a0 The Sister adopts Father O&#8217;Malley&#8217;s approach, she helps the wimp stand up for himself.\u00a0 If we simply correct the Bully, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>the wimp is still just a wimp without a bully<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Perhaps that is something you will think about when (if) you listen to what your children are being taught the school of political correctness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">And let&#8217;s not forget to place the blame where it really belongs for raising abusive bully&#8217;s&#8230;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>their parents<\/strong><\/span>&#8230;bully&#8217;s don&#8217;t just happen, they are raised.\u00a0 Regardless we have to learn to deal with real Bully&#8217;s&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/born-bully.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/born-bully.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1308\" title=\"born-bully\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<script>\r\n document.write('<hr style=\"width=75%; border-top: 2px solid #000; margin: auto;'>');\r\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got this notice in a Barnes &amp; Noble advertisement (along with links to anti-bullying books). OK, I know as a Martial Arts instructor and Self-Defense advocate I should be totally on board with the new Politically Correct drive to stop bullying, but this just goes to far.\u00a0 I am very against this type of<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/sticks-stones-words\/\" title=\"Read More\"> <span class=\"button \">Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123458,"featured_media":3684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,24,6,80,23,16],"tags":[17,18,22,192],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-for-kids","category-politics","category-questions","category-state-of-mind","category-training-notes","tag-beliefs","tag-confidence","tag-perspective","tag-real-men"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/relationships.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4228,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions\/4228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karatetraining.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}