Tag Archives: school bullies

The value of self-discipline

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Recently I had the chance to watch Lindsey Lohan’s 2004 film “Mean Girls.”  I hadn’t realized it when I first saw this performance but it was brought to my attention that it was based in part on the nonfiction book, “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” by Rosalind Wiseman.  This insightful look at the social dynamics of teenagers gives parents advice to help girls survive cliques, gossip and other issues at school.

Wiseman’s book fundamentally changed the way that parents look at their daughter’s friendships and conflicts.  It encourages them to become proactive in their children’s social development suggesting how to choose best friends and how to express anger.  Similar articles on child development stress that self-discipline is a very important skill to teach children.  By directing ones’ actions according to what one thinks instead of how you feel you can build your self-discipline.  After the novelty of beginning a new sport or musical instrument wears off one is tempted not to practice however by acting according to what we think rather than what we feel will help us attain our goal.

The background story of The Littlest Dragon and the Princess deals with incorporating positive growth principles into our lives.  It reinforces the important Napoleon Hill’s “Twelve Great Riches of Life,” presenting them as specific objectives that will increase peace and joy into our lives.  Hill’s list is prioritized with the most importance at the front but as important as “positive mental attitude” is I wonder if number nine, “self discipline” is perhaps equally important in one’s life.

Life can have challenging times and if we don’t learn to discipline ourselves to prevail we face discouragement, defeat and failure.  Repeatedly The Old Dragon Sage encourages The Littlest Dragon to face the bulling difficulties at school with self-discipline and not by responding to his teasing classmates.

Attainment of the Twelve Great Riches of Life is a life long pursuit but parents can ensure their children a greater likelihood of success by building self-discipline during the early years.  After winning the 2012 Olympic Gold in time trial U.S. cyclist Kristin Armstrong credited her success to self-discipline, “This is an amazing moment for me…I read about things like Michael Phelps.  But I always feel like I’m the normal one, the normal kid that never was told by their coach that I have anything special…It was just the determination and sacrifice that I had, all the way from when I was in elementary school.”

How to deal with classroom bulling

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There seems to be numerous items in the news each week about the trials our young go through at school.  One of the most disturbing is when an unfortunate youngster is picked on, worst still when they are bullied.  In this story The Littlest Dragon is teased about his height because he is about the size of a chipmunk and most of the other dragons were as big as horses.

Dragons in this society were supposed to be symbols of power and respect and like many different societies that lived in this area size mattered.  If you were big you seemed more important than others.

During the first year of The Littlest Dragon’s schooling some of the other dragons in his class begin to tease him about how small he is, they even try to convince him that he is so small that he is a nobody.  At the end of a rather grueling week instead of going home he retreats to the high mountaintops to be by himself and think.  It is in this area that he encounters one of the oldest dragons he has ever seen.  He is about the size of a dog.

The Old Dragon Sage listens patiently about how the other classmates have teased The Littlest Dragon.  He then gives him advise about how to create a situation that would reduce the amount of teasing and bulling.

Most of the classroom teasing and bulling is decreased if the individual being bullies doesn’t respond.  The more kids see that their target is uncomfortable and bothered with the verbal assaults the more they continue but if the target doesn’t react the bullies soon move on to other classmates who will become upset with the mean teasing.

Problems with classmates

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Rarely does anyone grow up without encountering problems with classmates in some form or another.  Encounters with bullies or bullying at school are a common occurrence in childhood. Addressing this issue wasn’t my initial purpose in writing this book but it became the background story for the main story about Chinese dragon mythology and the discovery of silk.

I realized that while I desired to present an entertaining story for kids  I also desired to offer beneficial insights on how to build a positive, happy life.  I wanted a story that suggested ways for kids to build strong self-esteem.

I firmly believe that we all have the opportunity to live positive, happy lives but, quite often, we can’t seem to find our way because of bad habits and low self-esteem we’ve developed early in our childhood.   As a consequence, we often cultivate states of mind that are less than joyous.  We tend to believe that the decisions we make in response to life’s challenges are ultimately out of our control.  As adults, many of us find it difficult to discard unresourceful approaches to responding to life’s challenges.  I believe it advantageous to start teaching our young children resourceful approaches to responding to the challenges they encounter at school and in their environment in general so that by the time they reach adulthood they have established the foundation for a positive, happy life.  The goal is learning to turn negatives into positives.

Sadly there will always be individuals who pick on or bully those around them when the teacher’s back is turned but the incident can be used to turn the child’s attention in a positive way.  So, for example, instead of focusing on feelings of being hurt and alienated due to the emotional incident, direct the conversation toward what type of person does the child want to be.  Stressing the thoughts of not wanting to be mean to others like the bully.  Encourage the child to take control of the situation by taking an objective position.  One-way is to evaluate the situation from the outside as if the child was a bystander watching the incident.

In the story The Littlest Dragon and the Princess, the littlest dragon faces a great deal of teasing from his classmates and especially the class bully.  His classmates try to convince him that he is worthless because he is so very small.  He is so perplexed after weeks and months of taunting that he wanders high into the mountains after school one day to think and try to resolve his predicament.  It is in this wilderness that he meets an Old Dragon Sage who suggests alternate responses to these conventional situations. The Old Dragon Sages begins to teach the Littlest Dragon about The Twelve Great Riches of Life, which begin with having a positive mental attitude. This is a positive approach to thinking that starts by learning not to look at beliefs about ourselves in terms of whether they are true or false but rather whether or not they are resourceful.  The Old Dragon Sage encourages The Littlest Dragon to discard any beliefs that are not helpful to him.

The main objective of this part of the story is to present a positive learning situation on which kids can reflect and incorporate positive approaches into their lives that help them learn how to take control and not allow external situations to create negative beliefs about themselves.   Importantly, this teaches children to be proactive in their lives rather than victims.