WHY IT WILL TAKE TEN YEARS TO END ADOLESCENT BULLYING

Ending the self-esteem epidemic one preschool kid at a time

There is no way to end adolescent bullying immediately. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month. A child is bullied every 7 minutes on a playground. An adult intervenes only 4% of the time and peers intervene only 11%, which means that 85% of bullying on playgrounds goes ignored.

It has been suggested that poor self-esteem is at the root of all bullying and bullying-related activities, such as cyber shaming, etc. To me, that is self-evident. But, it is also the very reason why we can’t just stop this poor behavior. A child’s self-esteem is mostly developed by 5-years-old. The adolescent bullying, shaming, obesity, substance abuse, poor grades, truancies, violence and suicides of which society is so concerned, are in fact, the manifestations of poor self-esteem that was developed before entering kindergarten.

Think of poor self-esteem as a viral epidemic with very dire consequences, like smallpox and polio were. They couldn’t be cured, but they could be prevented. Over the course of decades, smallpox and polio have been eradicated from the Earth.

Imagine a world filled with people who have healthy self-esteem. What a wonderful world it would be.

Inoculate this generation’s 2-5-year-olds with a healthy dose of self-esteem and when they enter kindergarten, they will be very young children who already have the foundation of healthy self-esteem. When they are ten, they will be elementary school students with healthy self-esteem. And, when they are fifteen, they will become high school students with healthy self-esteem and the tools to maintain it for life.

It is my experience that when children have good self-esteem, bullying, obesity, jealousy, prejudice and other negative social issues are minimized or disappear altogether.

 “Confident Kate & The S-Team? Kids” is a live-action, musical show created to empower preschool children and their parents by giving them the tools needed to develop healthy self-esteem and maintain it for life.

It is a vehicle to communicate directly with 2-5-year-olds, as well as call society’s attention to the self-esteem crisis and how to help fix it.

“Being bullied, shamed or looking different doesn’t have to impede the development of healthy self-esteem in preschool children ever again,” say Confident Kate and The S-Team? Kids.