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I’ll never forget when my son, many years before Gavin de Becker pointed this out in The Gift of Fear, watched the movie The Graduate and said in a horrified voice, “You told me this was a funny movie, but he’s stalking her, Mom!”
The good news is that social perceptions, understanding, and laws about what kinds of behavior are acceptable or not are changing. However, bullying and harassment are often shown in film and books as being entertaining or even humorous.
Both kids and adults need to remember that there is a big difference between pretend and real. No matter how interesting or funny something might seem on the screen or in print, in real life, it is not okay to behave unsafely. You have the right to stop people who say or do mean or unsafe things to you – and the responsibility not to be hurtful or unsafe with others. And, if you are the adult in charge, your job is to make sure that everyone understands the rules and has the skills to speak up for themselves – as well as the job of enforcing the rules when you need to.
This is one of the chapter intros in our new Kidpower Bullying e-book that will be available by November 15th:
Bugs Bunny. Bart Simpson. Harry Potter. Garfield and Odie. Daffy Duck. Huck Finn. Pinnocchio. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Charlie Brown and Lucy. Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wicked Witch. The Ugly Duckling. Edward Scissorhands. Tweety Bird and Sylvester the Cat. Spiderman. Scrooge. Popeye and Brutus. Little Orphan Annie. Oliver Twist. Tom and Jerry. The Roadrunner and Wiley E. Coyote. Cinderella & her stepsisters. Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. Caliban from The Tempest. Asterix and Obelix. Calvin and Hobbes. The Karate Kid.
Some of the best-loved characters in books and film were bullied, bullied others, or both. Bullying used to be taken for granted as an inevitable part of childhood. Now, we know both how common bullying is and the kinds of damage it can cause.
For more information about our new e-book Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do To Keep Kids Safe, visit:
https://www.kidpower.org/store/
And here’s more information about our other Bullying Prevention Resources:
https://www.kidpower.org/bullying/
Published: October 28, 2010 | Last Updated: September 19, 2012
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.
