Kyle Beach is a brilliant example of how being a whistleblower is not self-sacrifice, but self-determination. If you haven’t been following the story, this is a picture of Kyle Beach who yesterday moved from abuse victim into the whistleblower role as covered on TSN. I told you at the start, I decided to write this blog…
When you are abused, you often lose yourself, your authentic self. You become disconnected from your essential self. You are the self lost to abuse. My mission is to recover her and honour her. This is why you see her on my website. That confident, glowing, young, vibrant woman. I am dedicated to returning her…
In 2019, I was asked by students at Langara College in Vancouver BC to do a TEDx Talk on the work I was doing and this is what led to my presentation on the “Neuroscience of Bullying.” I was reading neuroscientific, neurobiological, medical, and psychological research about bullying and abuse in order to write my next book.…
When I did my TEDx Talk in 2019 (sorry the sound is terrible, out of my control), I was not expecting viewers to comment on parents bullying their own kids. Due to lived experience, I was speaking about the serious harm to developing brains when teachers abuse students, not parents. I hadn’t really thought about how some parents…
Parents, teachers, and coaches are not usually the bullies we feel comfortable talking about. We prefer to talk about child-to-child bullies. What’s going on when adults bully children? In most cases, adults come by bullying behaviours honestly because they were bullied in childhood. They think it’s normal conduct. They think it gets results. They think…
Give it a squeeze! What’s the best way to choose a perfect peach? Give it a squeeze! Now scientists say it’s the same for IVF embryos. Engineers are a practical bunch. Teamed with doctors at Stanford University, bioengineers realised the feel of newly formed IVF embryos offers a super quick indicator of viability. Normally it takes 5-6 days…
What we need to teach kids about the psychology of bullying. Schools are mostly fire-proof, but many aren’t bully-proof. Encourage children to question some of the bullying beliefs that give power to bullies and remove it from victims. Spark children’s empathy and compassion for those who are bullying, since it indicates they may be suffering.…
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out Take my daily Mindfulness Challenge to see how easy it is to feel better, no matter what the week flings at you. Is your life on a frantic auto-pilot? Up out of bed, shower, coffee and hit the road in a blur of activity? A morning of phones. emails…
Whistleblowers are afraid because those you expose attack what you care about. While whistleblowers are often praised after the fact for being courageous, few talk about how frightening it is to take this role. Dorothy Suskind writes that “whistleblowers place themselves in the path of an oncoming train in an effort to force a reckoning.”…
Research shows that whistleblowers don’t leap onto the path guns blazing. No. Whistleblowers try everything they can to solve the problem internally so as not to rock the boat, expose wrongdoers, cause trouble. That said, for whistleblowers, exposing injustice is an obligation, not a choice. I tried to address the crisis at the school in…