Love Shouldn’t Hurt Campaign
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THE HOTLINE (help NOW for those being abused)
VIDEOS Deaf TV -- DOVE.. Ending the Silence http://deaftv.com/film/dove—ending-the-silence/ Credit for this video is Gallaudet UniversityFeatured the week of February 10th
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ALL About Bullies Big and Small won the 2012 GRAMMY Winner for BEST Children’s Album. I couldn’t be more psyched because:
A. The landmark album is dedicated to raising awareness about the issues related to bullying and even delves into reasons some kids are bullies in the first place.
B. 100% of the proceeds are donated to The National Bullying Center.
C. Producer Steve Pullara is one of the NICEST guys in the business!
I recently had a chance to chat with Steve (on his way to the grammy nominee lunch) about music, bullying and how this CD came to be.
What inspired you to do this CD?
I was literally brushing my teeth. The TV was on in the bedroom and I heard a reporter mention . the White House’s new initaive against bullying. I didn’t think much of it at the time, as I was busy doing other things, but as my mind relaxed I started thinking about the issue and realized, “this is what we needed to focus on for our next CD.” I called a couple of people I knew and suddenly it came to be. Next thing I know people were coming to me and asking if they could be part of their endeavor. Our CD is comprised of some of the most talented musicians who all dedicated their time and energy to this important cause. Moral of the story: WAlways brush your teeth!
Why do you think families are enjoying this CD so much, afterall bullying is a tough subject to sing about
Steve: We were meticulous in making sure we had a narrative kids could relate to that was also fun, engaging and entertaining. It’s a delicate balance to be inspiring and informative without being “preachy.” We also have incredibly talented artists contributing to this compilation including Blue October, Frances England and Steve Van Zandt.
What will you being wearing on the red carpet?
Steve: I am wearing a tuxedo and my date is wearing what she calls a “retro-gown” in Aqua.
Congrats to Steve Pullara and the rest of the talented team behind this amazing CD! We look forward to seeing what you do next. And now a little treat…click on this link to hear “Cooperate!” By the Sugar Free All-Stars and Skidoo 23.
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Annie Fox, Educational Expert for 411 VOICES has successfully developed two APPS in conjunction with her MIDDLE SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL series designed to promote healthy friendships with tweens and teens and to prevent bullying. Annie also is available to talk to organization on how to help prevent and stop bullying in schools and neighborhoods. Connect with her via our Speakers Alliance tab here on 411 VOICES.
As seen on Oprah…
The fable goes that you can boil a frog alive. Just immerse the frog into a big pot of room temperature water, place the pot on the burner, and ever so slowly raise the heat. The temperature will rise so slowly that the frog will not notice. The frog’s body acclimates to the water as it gets hotter and hotter, and before the creature knows what’s happening, it succumbs, simmered to death.
In partner relationships, emotional abuse can sneak up in just this subtle way. In many families, teasing is a way to show love. As a teen or adult, you may tolerate such teasing, oblivious to the often inherent, yet thinly-veiled criticism. One woman put up with taunts of “clumsy,” which her partner turned into a nickname, clumsy Clara. Even though he insisted it was a term of endearment, she had not come from a teasing family, and to her it was an insult. Over the course of the relationship, as positive interaction declined, this label hurt more and more, affecting her self-image. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy; she tripped much more often when her critical partner was around. The socially-accepted vehicle of “teasing” also allowed her partner to up the ante, and he soon became overtly abusive with his words, worsening his taunts.
Emotional abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and dominate another, especially through humiliation, intimidation, and guilt. While we might recognize name-calling and constant, overt criticism as abusive, I think we need to call attention to more subtle tactics, such as repeated disapproval or even the perfectionistic demands of a partner who can never be pleased. One woman’s husband constantly chided her to “work a little smarter” in running their busy household. They had five children, all under the age of six. The poor woman was doing a respectable home-making job and the children were happy and healthy. But the fact that their home was not magazine-perfect allegedly authorized him to continue his criticism of her performance.
John Gottman, one of the premiere marital researchers in the United States, has identified the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: communication patterns that predict demise of a relationship. The Four Horsemen are:
1) Criticism: attacks on personality or character, with the intent of making one person right and one wrong. “You always …” “You never…” “You’re that type.”
2) Contempt: attacks on sense of self, with the intent to insult. Name-calling, sarcastic teasing, and nonverbal expressions such as eye-rolling and sneering are included.
3) Defensiveness: seeing oneself as the victim, and defending without listening.
4) Stonewalling: withdrawal from the relationship to avoid conflict. This can be seen as trying to be neutral, but when stony silence, distancing, and disconnection convey disapproval and/or smugness, the effect is emotionally damaging.
Horsemen numbers 1, 2, and 4 are clearly emotionally abusive given the above definition.
The lesson of the frog becomes relevant as subtlety and sophistication of the abuse increases. In current culture, an accepted premise is that we must compromise for relationships to succeed. To stand ground on some issues, to refuse to sacrifice one’s wishes, is seen as a selfish threat to the relationship. This assumption may be true, in extremes. But the degree to which many women have accepted this directive sets us up for emotional abuse.
People-pleasing is socialized in girls from an early age, by phrases such as “did you hurt your friend’s feelings?” or “don’t make Mommy mad.” We’re good girls. We want to get along. In the name of compromise, too often we internalize the unrealistic expectations of others for our behavior. After all, we already hold June Cleaver standards for ourselves. Or we lower our tolerance for another’s behavior; he’s stressed, she’s tired, he’s overworked. Criticism, impossible standards, or another’s temper are crosses we think we must bear to make the relationship work. We don’t see that the temperature is rising. The emotional abuse begins to wash away our self-esteem and confidence, much as boiling vegetables leaches out all the nutrients.
Healthy compromise is essential to relationships. Compromise, not sacrifice. When we sacrifice parts of ourselves to another’s subtle efforts to control us, as a means to make the relationship work, this is emotional abuse. The biggest mistake I see in women is this sacrifice, this loss of one’s self in order to make a relationship work. (This can happen without emotionally-abusive pressure from a partner. But such abuse accelerates the process.) In any significant relationship, the ideal is that our partners affirm us, allowing us to be our best selves—rather than attempting to recreate who we are. Compromise is about events and preferences, not changing self to fit someone else’s model. Compromise needs to be balanced, with both parties giving and taking. Sacrifice involves losing your strength and sense of self for the sake of the relationship, in a one-sided battle. And emotional abuse in the form of stonewalling, contempt, and endless criticism is a powerful vehicle to this loss of self.
The first step in freeing ourselves from the simmering pot of emotional abuse is awareness. We need to step outside ourselves and question, as I do in my blog, “who says?” Who says this is an okay way to be treated? As a culture, we have an odd double standard, allowing behavior in couple relationships that we’d never tolerate elsewhere. If you are being chastised, teased, criticized, judged--verbally or nonverbally-- in a close relationship, do a reality check. Is this any way to treat another human being? If you would not treat a friend or a coworker in this manner, speak up. “No one deserves to be treated like this” is a powerful statement to confront the abuse. Love should not hurt.
Gottman link: http://www.gottman.com/
Read more from Ann Dunnewold on her blog here:http://anndunnewold.com/?page_id=68
Are you Mothering a Mugshot?
Every now and again a name pops into my mind for no apparent reason. Yesterday, as I was driving to pick up my son from school, an old name flashed across my mind. Bam! What? Why? Again. Bam!I haven’t thought about my first boyfriend in years. We all think about our past time and time again; after all, our past helps to mold our future -- both good and bad. As I thought about him, my heart sank. I wasn’t sure why -- it just did. I remembered the sadness in his eyes and the anger. The empty feeling of a hollow heart and the signs of trouble in the making.I had picked him out, really. I knew, even at age 14, that he needed someone to care about him. My own mother used to say that if there was a “needy boy” within a 5 mile radius, I’d be sure to find him and attempt to bring him home. This boy was no exception. He lived within a 5 mile radius and was one grade higher than me. He had very few friends and relished in James Dean movies any time we had a day off school.I wanted to know why. Why was he a loner? Why was he so withdrawn and why did he keep his feelings locked up, as though they were secrets to withhold? Soon enough I found out. His mother was a drinker. When she’d drink, daggers of the verbal variety would fly from her drool-coated mouth:”Hey stupid! Can you ever do ANYTHING right?”Hey dumb-ass! Have I told you lately that I regret the day you were born?”“Hey loser! I don’t know why this girl stays with you. What does she see in you, anyway? I sure as hell can’t see anything worthwhile! She must be really desperate.”
One day I sat down with her and said, “Why do you talk to your son like that? I don’t understand it. My parents would never talk to me that way. What has he done to make you hate him?”
She didn’t have an answer. Her cold eyes softened for just a moment but then quickly glazed over as she offered me one excuse after the next. I realized: She doesn’t know HOW to love him because she was never loved.That only made me want to love her son even more. Not long after that, he gave me a Promise Ring. We agreed to get married and I vowed to show him all the love that had been withheld from the person who should have loved him the most.
The first time he hit me I let it go. “He knows not what he does. He’s so hurt and so angry. It’s not his fault.”
The next time he hit me I let it go. “He’ll outgrow this. Some way, some how I’ll help him be a better person. He needs me. If I leave, who will he have then?”
When he threw me to the ground and hit my head against the hard, cold cement, followed by a spit in the face…I left. I walked away and never returned.
It’s been almost 20 years since that day.
A few years passed and I ran into this boy on the road. I was driving -- he was walking. I slowed down and rolled down my window. He strolled over to say hello and recited my phone number; he hadn’t forgotten it.
Several years ago my mother ran into him on the Max Train. He recognized her and came over to ask about me. She didn’t share any personal information with him, as she didn’t want him seeking me out. You never know what a dope head will do, after-all. With eyes glazed over and a dirty face, my mother left him to his demons.
When his name popped into my head yesterday I wondered, “Did he ever pull out of this? Did he make it through to the other side?” Did he figure out, as Tyler Perry did, that although we can’t control our past we can damn sure choose to define our own future? We can let go of the pain and the anger and turn the energy into good. We can say, “I was done wrong to. But I won’t allow that to ruin the rest of my life.” We can attempt to refill our own self esteem buckets by surrounding ourselves with positive people, faith, filling our minds with positive thoughts and focusing on being grateful for the small things in life.
This boy I mention was a big part of my own choice to be a loving and nurturing mother. After watching the way his own mother treated him, I had thought long ago, “I will one day mother my children in a directly opposing manner to her parenting style. I will love my kids and appreciate their existence. I will tell them that they matter and never, ever undermine their place on this planet.”
I Googled his name yesterday. Up popped his Mugshot. Although his face was covered in hair I knew, without a doubt, that those hollow and lonely eyes belonged to my Promise Ring giver. Tears began to burn my eyes as I flashed back to his mother, the hateful things she used to say, the bottled up feelings he kept inside and the rage that ruled his broken heart.
This was all preventable. Angry grownups don’t just happen. They are created. When our children know they are loved and valued they grow up to understand how to give love. Giving and receiving love are key elements for a successful journey in this earthly life.
Let’s ask ourselves today: “Am I Mothering a Mugshot?”
It’s never too late to love our children more -- to value them more -- to yell at them less -- to undermine them less -- to point out their values and talents more. This boy of which I mention was a genius computer whiz. Given enough positive feedback from his parents, he could have been working for the FBI or CIA today. I believe that his abilities could have been steered for good, had his parents (and especially his mother) verbally rewarded him and offered him peaceful guidance.
Instead, she Mothered a Mugshot.
ABOUT the Author:
Shara Lawrence-Weiss is an early childhood and business expert with 411 VOICES. She also is the owner of Mommy Perks, Personal Child Stories, Early Childhood News and Resources and Kids Perks. She and her husband co-own Pine Media. Shara has a background in education, early childhood, nanny work, published freelance, marketing and special needs.
Posted February 1st:A letter to survivors of domestic violence… from Mildred Muhammad
411 Voices expert, Mildred Muhammad is known to many as the ex-wife of the DC SNIPER. She chronicles her life with John Muhammad and gives hope for other victims in her book, SCARED SILENT. Here is her letter to other survivors. If you are in need of help or know others who are being abused, please go to AFTER THE TRAUMA.
Dear Beloved Survivors,I am so thankful to Almighty God for giving you the courage to move forward with your lives. As a survivor, I know all of the pitfalls that come along to test us in our times of struggle. We are so busy being in “survival mode” that we feel we’ve forgotten how to live. Most of our friends and family don’t understand us or have the patience we need to feel right about moving forward.Let’s be clear on the definition of a “survivor”! The definition of a survivor as given in the dictionary is “a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.” Well, I believe this is a pretty accurate definition of what we are doing, don’t you? We have learned, through our adversities, how to make things happen. We’ve learned what we need and what we don’t need in our lives.However, there are some of us who are stuck “in the trauma” and need help to continue the fight. We have to reach out to each other and help one another. I want you to know that you are not alone. Stop beating up on yourself or telling yourself that it is your fault! IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! Don’t take that burden upon yourself. When you need someone to talk to…email me. I am here to help as much as I can. I’m here to listen, to assist with helping you to find resources and for general conversation. Why? Because I simply understand.I started After The Trauma because of my own personal domestic violence experience and thought of all of the other women in similar situations who need day-to-day assistance, as I did. After the Trauma is women who are transitioning from a domestic violence situation and are ready to take the next step into “freedom”. With the passion and compassion God has put in my heart for us, the survivor, I know with His help, we will be successful in moving forward with our lives. I say ‘our lives’ because I’m here with you. I won’t get tired, I won’t become frustrated, I won’t be impatient and I will be there to hold your hand. My total and complete focus is on us, the survivors. The ones that others seem to have forgotten since our initial trauma is over.The most critical time of our development begins now and since others know we are out of the initial danger, they assume we are doing fine. Well of course, we know…that is not the case! There are a few organizations out there that do assist survivors and when I find them, I will put them on my website so that you can have access to them. You shouldn’t have to call all day long hoping to find someone to listen to you. Send one email to me, and I will do my very best to get you the information you need, if I don’t already have it.So, as we embark on our journey to success, let us not forget those who are still being victimized. If you have gotten help and it was good for you, then pass on the information to someone else. If we all do a little to help each other, no one person has to do a lot!
I want you to know that I truly understand the struggle and pray that by the grace of Almighty God, we will be successful in a manner that is pleasing only to Him!
May God bless us all with the light of understanding, patience and peace.
Sincerely, Mildred Muhammad
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