Dr. Renee Clauselle, Founder, Child & Family Psychology, says the White House is providing a valuable service for the students, parents and teachers by holding a roundtable discussion at the national level to address the problem of bullying that takes place in the nation’s schools.
The White House Conference on Bullying Prevention is scheduled to be held on March 10. Students, parents, teachers and community leaders are being invited to the conference, which will be streamed live throughout the day at www.WhiteHouse.gov/live. In addition, visitors to the website can discuss the issue of bullying online with a panel of experts and ask questions through the White House’s blog site. The White House also put out a public service announcement via Facebook to raise awareness on bullying and how it can be prevented.
The White House’s blog site reports that nearly one-third of all school-aged children — approximately 13 million students —are bullied each school year. According to the StopBullying website (www.StopBullying.gov), children who are bullied show signs of anxiety, sadness or depression. They come home with damaged or missing clothing, have trouble sleeping, change their eating habits, lose interest in school work and being with their friends, are afraid to go to school and have injuries that are either unexplained or self-inflicted.
Bullies, on the other hand, are very confrontational (verbally and physically), wind up in detention or the principal’s office more often, refuse to take responsibility, blame others and associate themselves with other bullies, according to StopBullying.gov. The White House also states that students who bully other students are more likely to have challenges in school, abuse drugs and alcohol and have physical and mental health issues.
Dr. Clauselle says she is glad to see this issue get nationwide attention, and complimented the President and the First Lady for engaging tweens and teenagers by making the summit available on Facebook. In doing so, they are engaging the students. Dr. Clauselle also supports the mission to get parents involved in the discussion. Too many parents still ignore the issue of bullying and think it is “just what kids do.” Hopefully, many parents, coaches and school personnel will tune in to this informative conference.