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Words that Heal Bullying and Body Shaming

10/9/2024

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What do you say to a child who’s been bullied or body shamed?   
 
Being repeatedly fat-shamed and ridiculed can leave lasting scars.  But a new study of 341 bullied teenagers, now an average of 25 years old, shows there are words that can help them recover.  
 
Parents and friends usually try and reframe a nasty comment in a positive way – like telling a fat-shamed teen they are “big-boned” or “curvy.”  There might be better approaches, according to forthcoming research in the International Journal of Child and Human Development.

One approach is to focus on how the bullied person – perhaps unknowingly – makes other people feel good.  “For instance, you might say how their eyes light up the room, or how their smile is infectious,” according to lead researcher Valerie Wansink, from the Lansing Central School District in New York.  “Bullying makes people feel alone and disconnected.  This approach makes them feel connected and valuable.”

A second group of bullied people reported hearing an “anchor” word that eventually became a positive part of their identity.  Being called ‘mesmerizing,’ ‘striking,’ or ‘quietly graceful’ was something that really stuck with people and became part of how they see themselves – even years later.

Boosting up a bullied teen by giving them an anchor word that could influence their identity or by saying how they uniquely influence others isn’t easy.  “The more thought you give to who your child is or who they could be, the more your words might heal,” said Wansink.

Although 32.3% of body shaming related to weight, teens were also attacked because of their height, skin, hair, and specific features such as their nose or teeth.  The most memorably hurtful comments were exaggerated comparisons or derogatory nicknames.  The web-based survey involved an international group of English-speaking people (79.5% female; average age 25.03 years) who had a body shaming or bullying experience as a teenager.
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The article is being published in the forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Child and Human Development. The full paper can also be accessed at www.TheThirdLook.org.
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Words that heal Bullying and Body Shaming
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Beat the Back-to-School Blues

9/3/2024

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"Summer's over and I didn't get anything done."


I’ve heard this every August, and I’ve said this almost every August.

Whenever I’ve asked professors and PhD students what percent of their planned work they got accomplished over the summer, no one has ever said “All of it.”  Almost everyone says something between 25 to 35%.  Everyone from the biggest, most productive super stars with the biggest lab to the most motivated, fire-in-their-belly PhD student with the biggest anxiety.  

We are horrible estimators of how productive we’ll be over the summer.   I was in academia for 35 years (including MA and PhD years), yet every single summer I never finished more than 30% of what I planned.  How can we be so poorly calibrated?  We never learn.  We never readjust our estimate for the next summer.   Next summer we’ll still only finish 25-35% of what we planned to do.

There are only two weeks in the year when I’m predictably down or blue.  It’s the last two weeks of August.  It’s not the heat (I mostly stay indoors).  It’s not the impending classes (I love teaching).  It’s not all the beginning of semester meetings (I loved my colleagues and loved passing notes to them under the table).  Ten years ago, I realized that I felt down the end of every August because I had to admit “school’s starting and I haven’t gotten jack done all summer.” The beginning of school is the psychological end of the Academic Fiscal Year.  

One solution to our August blues lies in understanding what times of the year we do like most, and to see if we can rechannel those warm-glowy feelings to August.

If you had to guess the #1 favorite time of the year for most academics, you’d probably guess “The end of school.”  The #2 favorite time of the year you might guess would be the “Winter or Christmas break.”  What would you guess the third favorite time of the year is?

Surprisingly, I’ve heard people say it’s when they turn in their Annual Activity Report.  That’s the summary they turn into their hard-to-please Department Chair that summarizes what they’ve accomplished in the prior 12 months:  What they published, who they advised, what new things they’ve started, what new teaching materials they’ve created, and so forth.  

Snore.  How could writing an Annual Activity Report be a highlight?

Because it shows in black-and-white that we didn’t sleep-walk through the year.  It reminds us that the publication that we now take for granted was one that we were still biting our nails about last year at this time. It reminds us of our advises who were stressing over their undergraduate thesis a year ago and who have now happily graduated.  It reminds us of the cool ideas we've into hopeful projects -- ideas we hadn't even thought of a year ago..  Going back in a 12-month-ago time machine shows us what we did accomplish.  It turns our focus toward what we did – and away from what we didn’t.

Once we cross things off of our academic To-do list, we tend to forget we accomplished them.  August might be a good time to do a mid-year AAR.  It might not turn our August blues into a happy face yellow, but might at least turn it to green.  A green light for a great new school year. 

Have a tremendous school year.
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