Hi! It’s me, Elle Burton.

Peggy asked me to be in charge of a page here on her blog, so I could talk to you about some of the things that really make it hard on us kids.

I’m not exactly sure what you might be interested in, but I know a lot now about the things that bother the students where I live in Wisconsin.

Elle’s Kid Tips

Bullying is something that is happening everywhere. One of my friends now has seizures because she fell and hit her head really hard during a bullying incident at school. It’s really sad to see her so afraid now.

She wasn’t able to come back to school for almost five months. I feel bad for her because she was a top student before she got hurt. Now she has trouble concentrating and remembering things.

There’s a really good resource that Mom found in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, written by Jennifer Wickham, a psychotherapist in Eau Claire, WI. You can find the resource at stopbullying.gov.

Ms Wickham also talked about the differences between teasing and bullying in her editorial commentary.

You can see the differences, but sometimes I find the lines are kinda blurry between the two:

Teasing

• Done for the sake of fun
• Mostly verbal, such as name calling and comments about clothing
• Involves copying of actions
• Never involves intimidation
• Tends not to be repetitive

Bullying

• Purposeful
• Imbalance of power
• Takes many forms, such as physical, social, verbal, or cyber
• Can involve threats and intimidation to induce submission
• Can be repetitive
• Can cause physical harm
• Causes psychological harm

You can find her entire commentary here in the Leader Telegram

Do you think kids would bully someone if they knew they’d get hurt so bad? I’d really like to hear what you guys think.

Be sure and let me know if you have any ideas for Elle’s Kid Tips!