Bullyproof Your Child

View fullsize

The Humanity Project offers many many free resources on a variety of topics related to our mission. These include our programs and speakers bureau, of course, but also lots of online features: blogs and podcasts, fables and videos, music and our store. And more. Through our great sponsor, Google, the internet materials are promoted worldwide… and they attract visitors every day from six continents. (Nothing from Antarctica, yet.)

We’ve just added a valuable new post to our gallery of information. It’s called Bullyproof your child. We think parents will find this a useful guide to help them raise self-confident, healthy children. Based on decades of our experience, the Humanity Project believes that parents can train their children to build deep feelings of self-worth. And in doing so, help their kids become “bullyproof.” The article explains why that happens and offers very practical tips about how to accomplish this.

The post is adapted from a forum for parents on bullying. It was presented at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Broward County, Florida on January 11 2025 by Humanity Project Founder & President, Bob Knotts. Here is part of the message:

“Bullying only hurts if it strengthens doubts the child already has about themself. In other words, the self-doubts we all have, including children, are openings for bullies to do their damage. Your child’s insecurities are the only weaknesses a bully can exploit to cause pain. The child who feels they are… whatever their insecurity might be. Stupid, fat, ugly, unpopular, awkward, klutzy or anything else. Bullies will discover those insecurities and hammer at them mercilessly. But those taunts only do real harm if the child already believes them to be true in some way. The bully just confirms those self-doubts. And makes them worse. Nasty comments never really reach a kid who is truly self-confident.”

We hope you’ll check out our new post. And please, pass it along to any parents who may benefit from reading this piece. The Humanity Project’s most fundamental mission is to promote and inspire greater feelings of self-worth among as many human beings as possible. That’s why we work toward “equality for each, respect for all” — because equality and respect help individuals to recognize more of their own value, their humanity. And therefore to recognize the value of others too. For centuries, great thinkers have understood the core importance of self-worth in the lives of their people and their societies. The Humanity Project believes better, wiser parenting is the key to building self-worth.

Self-worth Is The Goal

View fullsize

January 28 2024: Talking about the Humanity Project’s emphasis on self-worth

The Humanity Project was founded in 2005 with one central focus: to promote individual self-worth. Despite our many changes in all those years, that goal remains our focus. Briefly, we’d like to explain why this is true.

Our stated mission is “instilling greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity.” And our trademarked motto is “Equality for Each, Respect for All!” How, then, is self-worth the focus of the Humanity Project’s work? Those statements sound as if our efforts involve social change more than individual change.

But here’s the connection, which some folks may not realize when looking over our programs: We promote social changes that result in the individual improvements we seek — that is, greater self-worth. For example, research has shown for decades that school bullying damages student psyches, lowering a child’s sense of value as a human being. Other kids are making fun of them, afterall, or even harming them physically. Obviously, this often makes bullying victims feel bad about themselves. So our acclaimed, nationally known antibullying programs help to stop the bullying, which is the immediate goal. But the true underlying intent of our programs is to prevent individual students from suffering psychological scars that may diminish their self-worth for a lifetime.

This underlying goal is also the reason the Humanity Project works as close allies of organizations in the LGBTQ community, whose individuals are disproportionately bullied and attacked, verbally and physically. And for the same reason the Humanity Project does whatever we can to promote the value of religious and racial minorities as well as all genders. By laboring for equality and respect-for-all, we’re really working to ensure that more people have the opportunity to feel good about who they are. That effort, that goal, is the fundamental “project” in our name — to create greater self-worth among our fellow humans. Or as many of us as we can reach, anyway.

Yes, equality for each, respect for all. Yes indeed, greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of humanity. These are just lovely ways of saying that the Humanity Project wants each person to appreciate their own worth, which in turn allows them to appreciate the worth of other people. We hope to inspire a recognition of our individual humanity … and thereby, the humanity of everyone else. That’s the Humanity Project.