Drugs...won't heal your pain and they'll never make you cool.

If their is one thing, I despise more than bullying, it's drugs. Now folks I'm not talking about your garden variety of tylenol or the penicillin, that lovely doctor prescribed for your cold. I'm talking about weed, kush, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and whatever else. The real stuff.

I rarely take the time to be completely blunt but this stuff is serious and things need to be said. You may be part of the in crowd today because your smoking that spliff, but what happens tomorrow? Prison, Addiction, A grassy plot a memorial cemetery, Your left overs in an urn?  None of those things are cool.

Today that Heroin might numb your pain, but eventually that pain will become immune and your left an addict with a drug addled brain and an immeasurable you can never lessen because drugs don't deal with it. Like treating gunshot wound with a hello kitty band-aid.

Never be the reason somebody turns to drugs, Never offer your friends drugs. If you see that a friend of yours is using, it's time to be responsible and talk to them and bring their parents into the conversation. You might hurt your friendship, but friendships mend like broken bones and you could save their life. Never, be a bully. Because sometimes being bullied is the catalyst to another's drug addiction. Be a friend and you might just keep a person from that path.

If you ever find yourself in a position where you hurt so much, that you want to consider drugs, don't. It's time to talk with a parent, teacher, principle, priest, anyone you trust or call a support line. Maybe find a support group anything to stay off of that road. It's a dark, dangerous road full of hurt and sorrow for more people than just you. If your struggling with drugs, it's time to find a support group and to talk, because staying on them isn't an option. Don't be ashamed, it's better to be remembered as a former addict who had the courage to come forget and get help to find away to get clean. Than to be remembered as the addict who never tried or didn't have the courage.

Young adults, adults....don't buy into this garbage that you need drugs to have fun, let loose and chill out. If thats the case, you've forgotten how to have fun.

Take one look at Hollywood or the music industry and look at the effects drugs have had. It's never pretty. Life is not the next picture in the Hang Over Franchise.

-H

How to be a Hallway Hero ( Step up to Bullying)

It's still the start of school, you've all still have nine months to go. That seems like forever, just wait until your 20s kid. Nine months...seems like nine days, what you wouldn't give to be back in the class room. Still there are nine months left to start being somebody's hero.

If you notice a kid being bullied, don't shy away from them, be a friend. Ask them to play or about their favourite music. Let them know that even though somebody or a lot of somebodies are being jerks, You'll always be their friend. Stuff like that, it means so much to a kid that feels friendless.

Teachers can't be everywhere and they certainly can't see everything. Sure it's fun to get away with things, like chewing bubble gum in class, sneaking a bit of your snack from your lunch. But bullying isn't one of those fun things a teacher can miss. If you see a student being bullied, find a teacher and tell them. A teacher can't help, when they don't know whats happening. If you don't want to be seen by other students, catch the teacher during recess or just after school.

Maybe you know bullying is happening, but you've never really seen a student doing it in order to tell a teacher. Don't worry thats O.K because there are still things you can do to help. Make a poster about why bullying isn't nice, and how being nice = being cool. Ask your school's principal if it can be put on the school's bulletin board, who knows maybe the principal will turn your small idea into a school wide project.

If your a parent concerned about bullying, be a hero, be active. Get together with other parents from the school in perhaps a PTA setting and brainstorm on school activities that would force your children to get to know other children through fun activities. Activities that would enforce the values of being kind  and not being a bully. This helps in so many ways. Also be mindful of how you act at home, if junior always hears you gossiping and complaining and saying mean stuff about people in your life, they may thing it's ok to do the same thing to their school peers, especially when your kids don't have the contextual knowledge behind some of these actions that you do.

Remember to be a Hallway Hero.
-H

Being the New Kid, Declassified.

Image from RolePlay Republic

Hey, Howdy and Whats Up? Besides the sky, unless you're doing a handstand! Because obviously, the sky would be down then.  Enough of my nonsensical ramblings. I'm pretty sure I started this blog with a very good point in mind, oh right being the new kid.

Being the new kid, can be a good thing and other times it can be kind of scary. It's always a new start. Maybe you've moved to a new town, changed schools or maybe you're just growing up and moving up to the big leagues, 9th grade.  I was the new kid three times before eighth grade, again in 9th and all over again in college. I learned a few things along the way, sometimes later rather than sooner.

If you're worried about locating your classes or other things in the school, just ask your principal or the secretary for map. If you happen to be going to a large school, they should be able to print you a copy and then you can highlight where you need to be. As much fun as it is to miss a chunk of class while you still have the excuse of getting lost, not being able to find the bathroom while everyone is still in class, sucks.

There is something about lunch hour, for a lot of kids it's intimidating. Lunch is viewed like a poster for the schools pecking order. I have secret for you, it's all rubbish. If you don't know where to sit, you can always introduce yourself to any table and ask if you may have a seat. Sometimes that might be just a little to much for a person on their first tour of duty at a new school. You can always look for another person who is alone and introduce yourself, you don't know you might just have found your first new friend.

Sometimes making friends isn't always the easiest or most natural thing for some of us, I was a textbook case of having trouble making new friends. What I found was, I had an easier time, when their was already a common interest in place. Make sure to check out your schools clubs or sports teams. This is a great way to make friends, because you already have something to talk about. If you notice your school doesn't have a club that fits your interests, talk to your schools administration about possibly starting one if a teacher is willing to be on duty for it.

Most of all, just be confident and own your stuff.  It might take a while to settle in, but grin and bare because it will get better.

-H
If you have any advice for new kids, leave a comment in the comment section. If you have any ideas for future topics leave it in the comments.

How your School can put a curb on Bullying and be able to deal with incidents faster

With a new year, you are bound to see bullying take place, you may even be a victim of it. You know you should probably tell a teacher or even ask the bully to stop, but sometimes, that can be very hard.
Everyone knows what it means to be marked as nark, looking back on it as a grown adult you'll end up thinking the whole fear of being a nark, was really stupid.

Statistically, only about 8% of school yard bullying ever comes across the administrations desk, because school supervisors can't possibly see it all, Then you have all those students who fear the social repercussions of being marked, tattletale.

If you're a teacher, student consider talking to your school about a smart phone application called TipOff it was recently rolled out as a pilot program in Hamilton Ontario. This app allows students, parents and even teachers to select their school and send a text directly to the school administration. This application scrambles the phone numbers so it remains truly anonymous. Thus far it's already caught a student who brought a knife to campus and intervened in school bullying.  It's gotten great reviews and I'd like to see more schools globally showing an interest in the app so it's in every school possible, sooner rather than later.

I think this is a great application, that could be a serious asset, face it students are going to text in class whether you ban cell phones or not. Might as well make it a truly positive thing.

You can browse this article about the app.
http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/02/05/hamilton-bullying-app.html
shout out to CBC for being awesome.

-H