Tonight, I was working on the online half of a workshop that I need to complete for graduation and teacher certification. It's all about bullying and harassment in schools. While some of the facts I had learned about previously, some of the information was very interesting to learn.
I think that harassment is a type of abuse, so that makes sense to me that the children would have similar impacts on their brains. When I try to educate people on the different reasons why a child may be placed into foster care, I try to tell them that it is not always just physical abuse. Mental or emotional abuse is just as bad for a child as being beaten.
Making a child feel unwanted or unimportant is damaging to the child's self-esteem and overall quality of life. When we take in foster children, my mom always talks about how important it is to make the kids feel good about themselves and to praise them for even the smallest of accomplishments. You want children to have a high self-esteem and to feel like they can conquer the world. Children can do anything that they put their minds to; it's horrible if children are getting picked on and made to feel bad at school, but there are so many measures being put into place to prevent or resolve that issue. But children certainly shouldn't be getting harassed at home, where they should feel the most safe and secure. A parent's job is to build their child up, not tear them down. So when children are placed in foster care, it is even more important that foster parents make these children feel better than anyone else ever has, especially because it's not unheard of for kids to be picked on for being in foster care.
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Thanks!
Taylor