Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 12:02 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 12:02 a.m.

Depending on your age, you may be familiar with the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I learned this phrase when I was 10 years old, and it has helped me understand how people cannot hurt you with words.

If parents, adults and teachers would teach their kids coping skills, there would be less bullying and trauma and fewer emotional problems. Many children have problems because they have not been taught coping skills and how to handle specific problems, which could have been eliminated if we taught our children how to handle the situation.

Parents, adults and teachers must know the proper coping skills to help their children, as teaching improper coping skills would be just as bad.

Coping skills may be summarized by teaching the stimulus and response theory. When a stimulus occurs, there is always a response. In the case of bullying, criticizing or harassing someone, what the bully does or says is the stimulus; the response comes from the person being criticized or harassed.

The greater the response the bully elicits from criticizing or harassing a person, the more he will continue to perform the bullying. If the person being bullied has been taught the proper coping skills and does not provide the desired response, the chance of the bully using the stimulus again will diminish or eventually subside entirely.

If the bullying fails to draw the desired response often enough, the bully will stop picking on his target. Thus, if young children are taught coping skills, the bully will eventually stop his undesirable behavior. Adding coping skills to prevent bullying to school curriculums in the early grades might also help the child doing the bullying.

As parents, adults and teachers, the more we know about coping skills, the better we can educate our children on handling undesirable situations.


Haines City


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