"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"
Is there even a shred of truth in this rhyme? I understand that it is
supposed to teach children to take the high road or to not take it to
heart when taunted by a bully. But what is this rhyme teaching the bullies?* And what kind of lesson are we teaching the youth regarding the value of their spoken words?
Perhaps our society would be a better place if people understood that the words they speak do indeed have a powerful impact on the lives of others: that as a speaker they control the power to do much good or much evil with their very words.
So instead of the old "Sticks and Stones" saying,
what if we taught our youth a different message?
What message would you teach?
*Not to mention the apparent increase in the amount of attention this society is giving bullying. It leads one to wonder what the correlation is between our culture's general social mentality and the growing severity and numbers of "bullies."
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