“support, educate, advocate”
Those are the three goals of PFLAG, no matter what city or state you live in. As part of our “education” effort, we met with teachers at a local school this week, talking about how to use LGBTQ+ terms correctly, how to create gender neutral spaces, and how best to help students who are feeling very unsure of themselves.
One of the topics that came up, which we will address more fully next week, was how to handle bullying, since quite a bit of it is centered around any perceived “otherness.” Teachers have to deal with bullying as it happens, but wouldn’t it be great if we could stop it before it starts?
Here’s a terrific resource for anyone who has a child: endcyberbullying.org
Their page “prevention for teens” lists several steps that adults can take.
Will those steps stop bullying overnight? No, but collective action by all concerned adults would do a lot to help end the problem.
