www.StigmaHurts.com

When I was young, I was taught the phrase “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. My mother also reinforced in me as I grew that no one can make me feel bad unless I allow them to. I am in control of my own feelings.

I realize that the new line of thinking somewhat contradicts this. We are now being told to never use certain words in any context and sometimes people go to extremes to protect their children from words or images that can be hurtful to them. While I agree that we should be mindful of the things we say to each other, staging a protest over a word, when it is NOT being used to directly degrade or harm another human being, does not teach a child anything except how to be reactionary. If our true goal is to protect our children from emotional pain, then perhaps we should first attempt to raise a generation that does not discriminate. Teach them about others’ differences; teach kindness, patience and tolerance.  Help them to help those in need and remind them that bullying is hurtful and has dire consequences. Involve them in something charitable and purposeful. We should be instilling this in them from the beginning, not censoring every man, woman and child on the street who says something we don’t agree with. Don’t just give them a list of words they are not allowed to say. We all know what happens as soon as you tell a child they are not allowed to say or do something…

The second important piece of this is giving them the power back. Tell them that they have inner strength and that another child calling them a name, while not a very nice thing to do, should not make them feel defenseless. Our true strength comes from within and we as adults should be leading from example. We definitely should not be using hurtful words on each other, but we need to teach our children that a word can not make or break them. Parents can’t protect kids from everything. They are going to run into some unkind people in their lifetime. They might also hear words that are not being used to describe any particular person. This should not be disruptive to their lives.  Arm kids with control over how they feel about themselves and as this generation grows up, we may see the negativity diminish over time. But adults demanding control and starting a war over words only shows that we can fight over anything to get our own way without considering the feelings of others and does not set a good example for our kids. And I’m pretty sure bullies are what we were trying to protect them from in the first place.