What an incredible, peaceful summer I had! These past few months have added up to the first time I’ve actually spent living on my own—away from my parents or my college. I have grown so much! At the beginning of the summer, I was a little nervous to be starting an internship in a city that I barely knew, with people that I had just met, and a job wherein I didn’t know what to expect. Over time, turning to prayer became such a regular habit that I am immensely grateful for the challenges that I met and dealt with metaphysically in this brand new experience.
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I watched a Dr. Phil show on Girl World yesterday—the world where girls bully each other mercilessly. It was eye opening and scary. Dr. Phil said that a recent survey of sixth- and seventh-grade girls showed that almost one in three admitted to hitting someone as a form of bullying. And that doesn’t even count verbal abuse and cyber bullying. That’s a crazy percentage, and frankly, don’t you think that one abused kid is too much?

No doubt about it, the show had some good ideas on how to deal with bullying. They talked about things like talking to your parents, teachers, or other school authorities if you’re being mistreated at school. They talked about how important self-esteem is and what you can do to protect yours.

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October is Abuse Awareness Month.  As director of a domestic violence intervention program, I work daily with men who have been abusive to the women and children in their lives.
One of the ways that abusive behavior hides itself is by deceiving us into believing that verbal or emotional abuse is not a bad as physical violence, and isn’t really abuse.

Name calling, put downs, intimidation, and threats, however, are forms of aggression that have an impact no less than a slap, push, or hit. Identifying abuse for what it is, and then doing whatever is necessary to correct it, is a critical step in its elimination. Identifying behavior as abusive is freeing for both those affected by this behavior and the abuser because it pinpoints what needs correcting.

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