Helping Your Kids Stand Strong Against Bullies and Mean Girls

Helping Your Kids Stand Strong Against Bullies and Mean Girls - Parenting Like HannahRarely a week goes by without hearing about some teen who committed suicide or a terrible act of violence because of bullying. Bullying isn’t new. In fact, I would imagine everyone reading this was teased or bullied to the point of tears at some point in their life.

Parents have struggled for years to find ways to help their children deal with the inevitable feelings of sadness, fear or worry that often result from the behavior of bullies. You probably heard “They are just jealous.”, “Ignore her” or “Stand up to him” from your own parents.

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Helping Your Child Nurture Godly Friendships

Helping Your Child Nurture Godly Friendships - Parenting Like HannahToday’s children are lonely. Oh, they are surrounded by people from the time they wake up until they hit the pillow at night. Yet, that is perhaps the worst loneliness of all – the loneliness that won’t disappear when other people come into view.

Unfortunately, so many aspects of our culture are robbing our children not only of quality parent involvement, but also the solid friendships many of us had in our youth. The incessant rushing in our lives does not allow for hours of “I don’t know, what do you want to do” discussions or analyzing everything happening in your worlds in order to support each other and try to make sense of things.

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Changing Your Child’s Idea of Friendship

Changing Your Child's Idea of Friendship - Parenting Like HannahA hidden fear of every parent is that their child will not have friends. We want our children to be loved by their peers as much as we love them. You would think we would quell this fear by teaching our children how to be a good friend, but often this training only comes in the midst of some type of “friend” crisis erupting in the lives of our children.

In the meantime, we allow our children to believe the best friends are the people exactly like them. The people who enjoy the same things they do. The people who laugh at the same jokes, cheer for the same teams, have the same classes and think like they do.

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