Your Queenzine, Happily Ever After Today and The Alert Parent all rolled into one.
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Hi, All!

It's been a busy month of traveling for me...from Virginia...to New York...to Mississippi.

So here I am back in my office planning for what's coming next. I'll be keeping you posted as I go.

Enjoy the week's addition. Congrats to Virginia who won the PCPandora software! Thanks to all who entered.

And you know the routine. For all the bells and whistles, click on the links. To read the articles in their text versions simply keep scrolling down.

Take care, Allyn Evans

P.S. Please feel free to past this on to those you think would enjoy it.

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FEATURE ARTICLE #1: Frumpy, Dumpy and Downright Lumpy
Okay, in this article I am telling you my deep, dark secrets!
www.allynevans.blogspot.com
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FEATURE ARTICLE #2: Bully, Bully, Bully
Is your child dealing with a bully? Visit: www.thealertparent.com
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Feature Article #1: Frumpy, Dumpy and Downright Lumpy

“What is it about this place?” I said to my sister who was visiting too.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you feel as frumpy as I do?”

She nodded.

Just a few weeks previously I had been in New York City visiting her. I had even worn the same outfit I was wearing at the moment, except in New York I had dumbed it down a bit. I had added clunky jogging shoes, which I never do unless walking from here to kingdom come.

Also on that particular day I had added a top layer shorter than the under layer. It was colder than I had anticipated and my layering attempts were of a practical nature. Let’s just say that my “look” was interesting.

Not once while parading around the streets of Manhattan, whether in Madison Square, Midtown, SoHo, Chelsea or Greenwich Village did I feel frumpy or out of place or even worse…out of style. As a real test only the Universe can provide, I had proudly walked right past Clinton Kelly of “What Not to Wear” fame. Yes, the addition of the tennis shoes did give me pause as I strutted past him.

But not for one New York minute did I ever feel less than.

Sitting in the mecca of my youth, I felt dowdy, old - fashioned, outdated, oh yes and plain.

In my defense, these are feelings I typically don’t feel anymore. Normally, I don’t find myself sinking into the self - bashing place. As recently as a month ago, I believed I had made significant progress when it came to this self - love, self - acceptance issue. I still think there has been a shift. But obviously, there’s a little more transforming required to put these awful feelings to rest. Of course realizing I still had work to do was most irritating.

An hour later, I found myself in one of the boutiques purchasing new tops. Well, I could easily solve part of the problem.

The next day, members of my family all returned to the offending location. This time we were going to eat lunch. I felt much better. I had on the new top from the “right” store. Ahhhh. The frumps had disappeared. I still berated myself for weighing too much, but that’s a completely different story.

I hadn’t even noticed one of my cousins was wearing a tee - shirt—you know the kind of tee - shirt you wear to sleep in or wear to your child’s baseball game.

She complimented me on what I was wearing and then apologized for her outfit. “I can’t believe I forgot to pack something nice,” she said to me. “But thank goodness this is one of those places where it really doesn’t matter what you wear.”

My sister and I looked at each other. Okay, so we almost choked. Then we laughed.

My cousin. Well, she really meant it. She felt perfectly at home wearing a tee - shirt and jeans. And she also “looked” perfectly fine wearing her tee - shirt and jeans. We got it. Point made. High five the Universe that made it happen.

Turns out we were the fools. We were the ones that allowed our self - doubts and negative chatter to tell us we were somehow less than the “others” around us.

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Feature Article #2: Bully, Bully, Bully

"You wouldn’t believe what happened last night at Allison’s basketball game,” my tennis league friend said. “When the referee wasn’t looking this girl punched my daughter in the stomach. I wasn’t there. She told me when she got home.”

In recent years, society and especially schools have experienced an increase in bullying incidents. Although schools require “no tolerance” policies to discourage bullying, they are difficult to enforce. It takes more than words on paper to stop bullying. The challenge is to figure out how to stop bullying incidents before they escalate or cause long - term problems for the targeted students.

Recently I heard about bad things happening in my daughter’s small - town American middle school, but most of the girls I interviewed for Living Happily Ever with your Daughter Today reported a safe environment. When I asked my daughter about the increase in “incidents of violence” at her school, she didn’t know what I was talking about, though she did report school officials had closed the restrooms located near the lunchroom because of the fights.

“There are no bullies in my school,” one girl told me, but proceeded to describe how she had been verbally attacked by a girl at school. Another told me there are girls who do make threats, but her school administrators don’t tolerate it. “Most of the time it’s just girls being mean,”
she said.

“There are rude and cruel girls, mostly saying mean things,” another girl told me. She felt her school administrators don’t punish appropriately. One sixth - grader reported, “There are girls at my school who have been mean to me. They called my house and were mean.”

While many children are not affected by bullying, if your child is the victim of bullying—fights, beatings and “mean girl” behavior, including verbal and emotional attacks—you know the effects can be life - impacting.

Bullying does not respect age, color, education or experience. A bully’s targets are usually unsuspecting and undeserving. Timidity, passivity, and submissiveness encourage bullies because their goals of intimidating, overpowering, and frightening their target are easy to achieve.

My business partner and former high school teacher Linda Allen told me recently, “Taller, prettier, smarter, better, sexier, cooler—all those comparative and competitive words that end in “er”—motivate the bully to prove his/her perceived superiority over his/her target.”

“From a teacher’s perspective, bullying often mirrors the student’s home life and family experiences. When intimidation, insults, and physical abuse are the family communication strategies, the student learns to use such behavior with his peers and teachers to get what he or she wants—from attention and influence to a tangible object,” Linda said.

Linda believes there are no quick, simple solutions to eliminate bullying. “Responsible adults must take the lead in modeling appropriate behavior and educating both the bully on correcting his behavior and the target in developing skills to deal with bullies.”

If your child is grappling with the bully issue, here are some helpful tips offered by bullying expert Stan Davis, a school counselor and author of Schools Where Everyone Belongs and Empowering Bystanders: Don’t blame the targeted child. Find out what your child has already tried.

If a necessary, talk to teachers, counselors and administrators at the school and ask them to ensure your child is protected. Ask them to give consequences to students who bully and to supervise the situation more closely. Encourage your child to keep talking to adults and asking for help. Finally, if your child is isolated and needs more peer support, help them find other ways to meet and befriend others.