BURRILLVILLE – The Itty Bitty Super Dupers, “Be a Buddy, Not a Bully,” campaign is very important for kids here in this state, region and across America. It focuses on three anti-bullying areas dealing with children directly.
These three areas are popular with children, and they are participating with them regularly in their daily lives.
Kids should be reminded to not bully anyone on their cell phones. Many kids feel it’s okay to do this because it keeps them physically away and distant from their intended victims. It’s very harmful.
The second is face-to-face bullying, which puts the victims in a much more dangerous position because it could lead to a physical altercation, and can actually harm another child. Not only do the victims have to deal with the mental anguish of dealing with a bully, it could harm them personally. Either way, it leaves long lasting scars for a child harmed by bullying.
The third is computer bullying. Millions of kids can mentally attack anyone on the Internet and it doesn’t matter where they live. Again, with computer bullying the bully is out of harm’s way because it’s not a physical confrontation. This level of bullying is very traumatic for a defenseless person and can have a long lasting affect on that child’s state of mind.
Parents, teachers, pediatricians, nurses, family clinics, librarians, daycare staff and police officers can take last week’s Sunday Cartoon and add this Sunday’s Cartoon together, and make a simple, but effective four page coloring book to handout to kids in effort to stop bullying and raise awareness about having healthy habits. Kids relate well with cartoon characters they love, and every kid that sees the Itty Bitty Super Dupers coloring books, posters, placemats, fridge magnets and stickers, loves them. They are educational as well as fun for little kids.
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades. Jim was also appointed to Children Across America as their events and creative director for their child safety programs initiatives and outreach kids safety campaigns nationwide.
