Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can’t hurt me. This is a childhood saying that we teach our kids because we want to teach them that just because someone says something nasty to them, they don’t have to respond with fists or kicks or scratches. But words are powerful things, they can help and they can hurt. The child who is labeled ‘fatso’ or ‘four-eyes’ is immediately singled out by classmates for being different. The difference doesn’t have to be profound or even unusual, it just has to be different enough that the other kids can pick … Continue reading →