Topic: L is for Love
I want to take a moment to talk about LOVE.. I am not talking about love between a parent and child, or even love between a couple.. I am talking about SELF-LOVE, self-respect. I am absolutely horrified that in our super connected, media saturated world, we are teaching our children (not just LGBTQ kids) to HATE themselves. We teach them that they need to conform to societies view of them physically, mentally spiritually in order to be "accepted". You need to be a certain size, wear a certain style, have a certain about of money, worship at a certain place, be as smart as a certain person.
Kids are bullied every day, often over things they have no control over. Instead of teaching our children to embrace their differences, to love themselves, to be confident in themselves we are teaching them that they need to CONFORM. We teach our children self-hatred. That's not okay.
You need to teach them to LOVE themselves because that is the MOST important relationship they will EVER EVER have.
Kids that BULLY other kids do so because THEY feel like less, not because their victims are really less. People that bully other people do so because THEY don't like themselves, because in order to feel GOOD about themselves they must TREAT other people like they are LESS. They do it to make themselves feel SUPERIOR to someone else. People that bully others, don't love themselves.
So what can we do about it? We need to SPEAK up, SPEAK out, and teach our CHILDREN to LOVE themselves. Maybe the next time you see someone bullying someone else, you take the time not only to find out if the VICTIM is okay, but take the time to find out what might be going on with the BULLY. Kids project what they are taught.. maybe we should pay closer attention in our ADULT lives, about how we might be teaching our children to act.
