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Escuela Popular students say,”Please help us have fun and be safe with Kidpower!”
I’ll answer the swimming-bullying question below but, first of all, please support our first micro-donation campaign by taking a few minutes to help Kidpower meet a challenge grant which will double your donation.
With your help and a matching grant from the Frieda Fox Family Foundation, these funds will make it possible to provide Kidpower services to a very low income school in East San Jose.
Go to our special fundraising link here to make a $1, $5 (or more) donation: www.kidpower.org/escuela-popular-fundraiser/
No matter where you live, this is the best value you could get from just $1 TODAY. Your gift would be a great support to our nonprofit and would help provide Escuela Popular with Kidpower’s Positive Peer Interaction Program to address concerns about bullying and safety on a school-wide level.
In fact, talking about swimming doesn’t build swimming skills either.
Actually swimming — with close, careful, skilled, and compassionate coaches who stay close by, moving away gradually only as skills take hold over time — is the way to build skills that can help prevent the problem.
In the process, the focus is in the joy of swimming: health, community, fun, friendship.
In relationships, “bullying” is the word people commonly use to describe problems between kids. It’s the problem to prevent.
Talking about bullying doesn’t build skills to prevent bullying. And, talking about problem-solving skills actually doesn’t build those skills either.
Actually practicing skills — with close, careful, skilled, and compassionate coaching from parents,teachers, and youth leaders — is the way to build social interaction skills that can help prevent the problem of bullying.
In the process of practicing, the focus is in the joy and the positive potential of community, friendship, strengthening communication, and resolving conflict assertively. That’s why we think of this as teaching “social swimming” skills.
Again, please give $1 (or more if you can) TODAY to help us keep kids safe tomorrow! Not only will your gift help protect kids from bullying at this school, but you will also help us further the purpose of the grant to develop Kidpower’s capacity to use micro-donations to fund other services such as our extensive free on-line Library.
Please go to our special micro-donations fundraising links at www.kidpower.org/escuela-popular-fundraiser/
Published: May 12, 2013 | Last Updated: October 10, 2014
Irene van der Zande, Kidpower Founder and Executive Director
Kidpower Founder and Executive Irene van der Zande is a master at teaching safety through stories and practices and at inspiring others to do the same. Her child protection and personal safety expertise has been featured by USA Today, CNN, Today Moms, the LA Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Publications include: cartoon-illustrated Kidpower Safety Comics and Kidpower Teaching Books curriculum; Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe; the Relationship Safety Skills Handbook for Teens and Adults; Earliest Teachable Moment: Personal Safety for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers; The Kidpower Book for Caring Adults: Personal Safety, Self-Protection, Confidence, and Advocacy for Young People, and the Amazon Best Seller Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels.
