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Newsletter Volume 10 - January 30, 2002
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Shira
We are overwhelmed by the feedback we are getting from you, the members of Words Can Heal: your enthusiasm to take part in this movement to change the way Americans talk, the stories of your successes, the wrenching accounts of how so many of you were hurt by words, and the eagerness to share the message with your friends. As one member wrote, "It’s about time someone addressed the issue of verbal violence in America."
The good news is that you and your friends can now buy the Words Can Heal Handbook from www.amazon.com. For those of you who have already read the Handbook, why not go on line at amazon and submit your comments? The way our movement grows is by each of you spreading the word — only healing words, of course!
Among the many moving letters Words Can Heal has received, the most poignant were from children, or from adults who are still suffering from the words hurled at them as children. Just as a child’s body is much more vulnerable to physical injury, so a child’s soul is also much more vulnerable to insults, name-calling, criticism, and all kinds of derogatory remarks.
We are dedicating the next two issues of the newsletter to Children and Words. Below are four letters which illustrate the harm words can inflict on children. In the next newsletter, we will address the solution to the problem: "What we can do."
Irwin Katsof
Executive Director
Words Can Heal
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Quote of the Week
"It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
-- Frederick Douglass
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Letter 1: Lisa, 13
Hello! My name is Lisa. I’m 13 and in eighth grade. I decided to send this letter because I have an experience to share with you.
Well, you might as well know that I love to sing and act!! My music teacher picks a musical every year, and casts parts out to the high schoolers. Last year she picked the sad musical of "Oliver." She asked me to try out for the lead part of Oliver. Well, I was excited, scared, and confused all at the same time. Now remember that I was only in seventh grade, and asked to try out for a "high school" musical.
I tried out as hard as I could and made it. I got the part of Oliver! When I went to my first rehearsal, I could actually hear the older kids making fun of me and saying how they didn’t think I could pull it off and stunk and that I couldn’t sing. I tried to ignore it, but as Goldie had said, sometimes you just can’t ignore hurtful speech. If I was off key while I was learning a new song, they would say things like, "You’ll never get it right." If I would make a mistake with an emotion or line, they would belittle me and make fun of me. It was terrible and hurtful, because I was so young working with older kids, that HATED me. I would go into the bathroom during breaks and sob to myself.
It was a good thing that I had loving support from my mom and dad and sister but especially from my music teacher. When I was having trouble with a line, emotion, song or dance number, she gave me loving advice and got me through it.
I learned how it felt to be put down and criticized, and I will never treat anyone the way I have been treated!!!!!!
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Letter 2: An Adult Looks Back
I have experienced first hand the long-term damage of negative verbal remarks as both being during childhood and early adulthood. As a child I grew up in a dysfunctional family environment, always struggling to find my way by being a good child. The worst of my childhood pains did not come from my family environment, but from taunting children in school. We were poor, and I felt ashamed because of how I was treated, and I grew into a young adult always trying to please others, and never feeling quite good enough.
As I entered into my adult years, I became more a recluse, afraid of other people. It took me years to recover completely. I spent 17 years of my adult life hurting from the abuse.
As far as the taunting children that were in my childhood, I ask myself how many of those parents are aware of the abusive behavior that their children exhibit? How many parents teach their children and hold them accountable for their words instead of saying, "MY CHILD WOULD NEVER ACT THAT WAY!" All children are capable of being abusive to another, just as we are as adults. Be a responsible parent and listen realistically to what comes out of your children’s mouths.
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Letter 3: Peter's Mom
I’d like to share a little story that recently happened in school to my son, Peter, who is 11 years old. He rides a school bus one way to school 40 minutes. There's a lot that can be said in 40 minutes. There are 3 particular boys who continuously make fun of my son by calling him names such as "fat boy" and "jerk". This has been happening since the beginning of the school year. Finally, it escalated. One of the boys was punching the back of Peter's seat on the bus and then punched him in the head. Peter did ask him several times to stop punching the back of the seat. But, of course, he did not. Then the 2nd boy chimed in and started yelling obscenities to my son and pushing him. Naturally, my son is trying to defend himself when the 3rd boy approaches Peter with his fist curled in a ball ready to punch. So Peter put his hand over the boy's face trying to get him away, but it's now 3 against 1 and that is almost impossible odds. The boy did punch Peter in the face leaving a nasty bruise and mangled his eyeglasses. This was done on a moving school bus. The bus driver did pull over and try to handle the situation, but these boys were totally out of control all the while being very hateful and mean (verbally) to Peter.
Words are very hurtful, and negative words last a lifetime. But if we all pull together and treat each other with respect and kindness maybe we will get the same in turn And that's what I have taught not only my son Peter, but also his 2 older brothers and because of this I have wonderful children that I can be proud of. I'm not so sure that the parents of all of the boys involved in the above can say the same.
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Letter 4: A Child's Pain
Goldie Hawn mentioned the 10-year-old girl who hung herself. I cried. That was me at that age, nowhere to turn, and extremely suicidal. Everywhere I looked I saw a place to kill myself. I am surprised I have made it to my 18th year, where I am now, and a way out of my depression.
Since preschool I have been the subject of gossip and hateful words. I've been told I was the ugliest creature to ever walk, and hearing it so many times, I believed it. After all, how many people can be wrong? My family, when angry at me, would call me lazy and worthless, and I became so. I found that tears brought more laughter and mockery and so i shut them off. I shut everything off, and I hated myself.
I had pictures of myself in my room were I took thumbtacks and put large X's over my face as I cried and wept, feeling the sorrow and the deep hatred that every person I knew had for me. I would look to find a place to hang myself, a way to slit my wrists, and yet something stopped me, maybe fear, maybe a need to survive past all this.
Maybe one day I can see the world that I see inside my magic mirror, a utopia full of laughter. Where people won't be afraid to feel vulnerable, because no one would dare hurt them. Maybe one day, if Words Can Heal can reach out to each and every person. |
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