Raising the Bar to Help Children Thrive in Their School and Community

The Role of Adults in Shaping a Better World

In a time of uncertainty and unrest, when communities face divisions and hostility, a critical issue looms even larger: the impact this chaos has on children. Young, impressionable minds are witnessing anger and destruction from the very individuals they rely on for love, guidance, and nurturing.

As adults, we hold unique opportunities and responsibilities. Through voting, running for office, and demonstrating leadership, we can shape the world for the better. Years of experience have taught us to manage emotions, resolve conflicts, and persevere through challenges—skills that we are called upon to exemplify, now more than ever.

When teaching children how to build meaningful relationships, it’s essential to remember that they observe everything we do. How we interact with those who look, think, or feel differently sends a powerful message. Our actions speak volumes, shaping their sense of responsibility and ethical behavior.

For those striving to create a safer and brighter future for children, I commend your commitment to rise above destructive patterns. By promoting freedom and the pursuit of happiness through thoughtful choices, rather than conflict, we can set a standard of integrity and peace.

Ultimately, we must hold ourselves accountable to higher standards. By modeling social and emotional awareness, practicing self-management, nurturing friendships, and making ethical, responsible decisions, we teach children the invaluable life lessons that will guide them.

In this effort, MTA supports programs like the Confident Life Program™ for young children in pre-K to 3rd grade. Social and emotional learning (SEL) curricula that are engaging, accessible, and impactful can benefit both children and society as a whole. Every school and youth organization can help raise a generation of future peacemakers—an investment that shapes the world for the better.

Award-Winning Curriculum to Help Children Thrive


The Confident Life Program™ aims to create a foundation for lifelong social-emotional competence, helping children navigate their world with confidence and empathy. 

The program employs a diverse, multimodal approach—incorporating storytelling, films, role-playing, and various interactive activities—to aid children in gaining a deeper understanding of these four essential life skills.

Social and Emotional Awareness: Activities and lessons aimed at fostering children’s ability to understand their own emotions and identify them accurately. These activities also emphasize recognizing and empathizing with the emotions of others, helping children to appreciate different perspectives and build emotional intelligence. Examples include storytelling exercises where children discuss characters’ emotions, role-playing scenarios, and guided discussions about feelings and empathy.

Self-Management: Strategies and methods designed to help children cultivate the ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors effectively. This includes managing stress, resisting impulsive reactions, and maintaining determination in the face of difficulties. Activities may include using CLP feelings charts to assist teachers in setting up a calming space, journaling to encourage reflection on emotions, and establishing personal goals to foster perseverance and self-control.

 
Building Positive Relationships: Exercises designed to teach children the fundamentals of effective communication, active listening, cooperation, and problem-solving in social settings. These activities encourage teamwork and the development of healthy, supportive relationships. Examples include group projects, conflict resolution role-plays, games that foster collaboration, and practicing expressing gratitude or giving compliments to peers.

Ethical and Responsible Decision-Making: Guidance to help children make thoughtful, ethical, and constructive choices regarding their personal and social behavior. This includes evaluating consequences of actions, considering others’ needs, and choosing the most positive and productive course of action. Activities might include analyzing case studies of moral dilemmas, discussing the outcomes of various choices, or participating in community service projects that highlight the importance of responsibility and ethical behavior.


Help Us Create More Peacemakers in Your Community


To learn more about this program or to bring it to your school, please visit The Confident Life Program. If you are a business or an individual passionate about making a difference, consider donating the Confident Life Program™ curriculum to a school or youth organization. Visit the Sponsorship Form to explore this fantastic opportunity to support children in your community.

Ensuring Safety for Our Youngest Students: Grandma Yeti’s Back-to-School Tips for Grades K-3Violence in Schools

As the new school year begins, it’s essential to prioritize the safety and well-being of our youngest students. Here are some of Grandma Yeti’s key tips to help ensure a safe and smooth transition back to school for children in grades K-3.

1. Walking to School

  • Use Sidewalks: Teach children to always walk on the sidewalk. If there isn’t one, they should walk facing traffic.

  • Cross Safely: Children should stop and look left, right, and left again before crossing the street. They should cross at corners, obey traffic signals, and use crosswalks.

  • Avoid Running: Remind children never to run into the street or cross between parked cars.

2. Bus Safety

  • Wait Safely: Children should stand at least three giant steps away from the curb while waiting for the bus.

  • Boarding and Exiting: They should wait for the bus to stop completely before approaching to board. When exiting, they should walk ten feet ahead of the bus before crossing in front of it, ensuring the driver can see them.

  • Missing the Bus: If your child just missed the bus, make sure they know to never run after the bus. Instead, return to their home or other place of origin and contact an adult.

3. Stranger Danger

  • Know Safe Adults: Teach children to identify safe adults, such as teachers and school staff, and to never go anywhere with a stranger.

  • Emergency Contacts: Ensure children know their full name, address, and a parent’s phone number in case they need help.

4. Classroom Safety

  • Follow Rules: Encourage children to listen to their teachers and follow classroom rules to maintain a safe learning environment.

  • Report Issues: Teach children to report any unsafe situations or bullying to a trusted adult immediately.

5. Health and Hygiene

  • Handwashing: Reinforce the importance of washing hands regularly, especially before eating and after using the restroom.

  • Stay Home When Sick: If your child feels unwell, it’s best to keep them at home to prevent spreading illness to others.

6. Emergency Preparedness

  • Drills: Familiarize children with school emergency drills and procedures so they know what to do in case of an emergency.

  • Stay Calm: Teach children to stay calm and follow instructions from teachers and school staff during emergencies.

7. Cyber Safety

  • Supervised Screen Time: Ensure that young children use the internet under adult supervision. Set clear rules about what they can and cannot do online.

  • Safe Websites: Teach children to only visit websites that you have approved. Use parental controls to block inappropriate content.

  • Personal Information: Explain to children that they should never share personal information, such as their name, address, or school, with anyone online.

  • Stranger Danger Online: Just like in the real world, children should know not to talk to strangers online. They should report any suspicious or uncomfortable interactions to an adult immediately.

  • Cyberbullying: Teach children to be kind online and to report any instances of cyberbullying to a trusted adult.

8. Tips for Parents

  • Stay Informed: Keep up-to-date with school policies and procedures, especially those related to safety and emergency protocols.

  • Communicate: Maintain open lines of communication with your child’s teachers and school staff. Attend parent-teacher meetings and school events to stay involved.

  • Model Behavior: Set a good example by following safety rules yourself, whether it’s crossing the street safely or practicing good hygiene.

  • Create Routines: Establish consistent routines for homework, bedtime, and morning preparations to help your child feel secure and organized.

  • Discuss Safety: Regularly talk to your child about safety rules and why they are important. Encourage them to ask questions and express any concerns they may have.

  • Monitor Technology Use: Keep an eye on your child’s internet usage and ensure they are accessing age-appropriate content. Use parental controls and discuss the importance of online safety.

By following these tips, we can help create a safe and supportive environment for our young learners as they embark on a new school year. Let’s work together to ensure our children have a happy, healthy, and safe return to school!

Violence in Schools

In 1994, a group of scholars were very concerned over the amount of shootings and other violent behaviors taking place at schools in America. They wisely created the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, or CASEL. While they were not the first to create prevention programs for students based on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) techniques,  their work successfully generated more opportunities for students to be in touch with their own social and emotional health as well as those around them at school and at home. 

The results from the new SEL emphasis for students appeared to have reduced the amount of gun violence taking place at schools. The nation saw a decrease of incidents at schools, from a peak of 25 in 1994 (highest recorded up to that point in history) to 7 in 1997. The amount of school shootings per year stayed in the single digit range until 2005; one year after the creation of social media giant Facebook.

Recent studies have found SEL to be widely beneficial, decreasing emotional stress, strengthening coping skills, and providing a reduction in bullying. But how is SEL holding up for our youth, against the ever-so-present shadow of social media? The year after Facebook was created, our great nation edged back into the double-digits of annual shooting incidents at schools. Since 2010, incidents have remained in double-digits with the most recent five years averaging an alarming 55.4 school shootings per year. Is it possible that the pressures of social media and the ease of cyberbullying is erasing years of successful SEL work? 

We need to provide our children a solid foundation of Social and Emotional Learning during their formative years, to help them cope with the inevitable onslaught of bullying and similar issues that most children will face by the time they reach middle or high school. Some children display their learned behavior of discrimination and bullying as early as preschool, so providing an SEL program, such as the Confident Life Program™, is imperative to help young students thrive at school and in their communities. We need to provide them with a solid foundation of self-worth, respect for others, and similar skills as early as possible to prevent bullying and other poor behaviors.

While social media platforms may have many benefits in society, it also allows for young impressionable people to become the targets of cyberbullying. These platforms may be credited for bringing communities together, but they also have the potential to tear families and lives apart. Therefore, it is reasonable to see that parents allow much risk to their children by permitting them to have unsupervised freedom on social media. 

Without specifically addressing the potential hazards of online social media, the award-winning Confident Life Program™ provides a baseline for children to recognize and prevent various forms of bullying. Motivated To Act promotes the Confident Life Program™ for students in grades K-3 and is releasing a new 3-4 minute video on Thursday, April 25th on YouTube at 5:30pm PT, to share more information about this program. Please click on this link to watch the video. The Confident Life Program

If you are concerned about safety in your schools, one of the best tools we can provide for our children and communities, is to start teaching SEL programs to children at a young age. They learn the importance of integrating inclusion, empathy, respect, taking responsibility for one’s actions, leadership skills, conflict resolution, fair play in sports and more into their daily lives. All of this is included in the Confident Life Program™ and we need your help reaching out to schools and other youth organizations, to give them the opportunity to review this program.

For more information on how to request the Confident Life Program™ for your school or organization, please stay tuned and visit our website again in late May, 2024. Please also subscribe to our newsletter.

 

 

 

Mark your calendars for Monday, September 9, 2024 for the first annual Motivated To Act Gala!

MTA 1st Gala Save the Date

Curbing Our Explicit Bias and Implicit Bias

The way we view the world affects the way we view and treat the people in it. As a reader of this blog, I know that you will strive to treat everyone with respect, regardless of their culture, background, socioeconomic group, sexuality, or gender. But learning about how our biases influence us can help us to get more skilled at treating all people with respect. Let’s talk about two kinds of bias: explicit and implicit.

Explicit Bias 

Explicit bias is the bias we have toward certain groups of people at a conscious level. These are beliefs that you’re aware you have. Explicit biases will often take the form of stereotyping other people.

Stereotypes are inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group or category of people. Stereotypes allow others to shallowly categorize people and treat them in certain ways based on generalized expectations.

In other words, stereotyping people is not good. And the less we know about someone or a group of people, the more likely we are to let stereotypical views drive our imaginations. If, in reflecting on the way you treat the people around you, you find that you have some explicit biases, a great way to curb those notions is to get to know individuals with the backgrounds or affiliations you are biased against. You’ll quickly learn that your stereotypical assumptions do not apply to everyone in that group. People of all kinds are just people, for good and for bad.

Implicit Bias 

Certainly, you may be thinking that you’d never stereotype someone based on their race, nationality, gender, or sexuality. We all strive to be good people, and we think that “good people” don’t do things like that. But it’s not that simple. Because we live in a society with structures in place that reinforce racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, people can hold biased views without meaning to, or even realizing that they’re being influenced by bias. This is known as implicit bias.

The National Center for Cultural Competence explains this type of bias:

Implicit or unconscious bias operates outside of the person’s awareness and can be in direct contradiction to a person’s espoused beliefs and values.

Kinds of Implicit Bias 

Implicit biases start to form in children at a very early age in reaction to the attitudes of people around them, media, and the direct and indirect messages they get from authority figures. When children live in a country with structural racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, and transphobic attitudes, it’s very hard for them to not subconsciously absorb some of those attitudes. Most children may not even realize how their biases are presenting themselves! 

Implicit bias can take the form of:

  • Affinity bias: Affinity bias is the unconscious preference for people who are similar to yourself.
  • Confirmation bias: When you cherry-pick examples to confirm stereotypical beliefs you hold about a person or group of people. Confirmation bias drives people to remember or notice examples of things that confirm their beliefs, but not examples that challenge those beliefs.
  • Microaggressions: Microaggressions are the small-but-exhausting everyday slights and snubs that people in marginalized groups face from people in culturally dominant groups. These can seem “innocent,” but when repeated, cause the people experiencing them to feel targeted with a reduced sense of belonging.

Curbing Implicit Bias 

No matter what their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality is, it’s likely that children of all ages have implicit biases. The Confident Life Program© is designed to help young children identify and unlearn their biases. In the meantime, please share these three things children may do right now to fight implicit bias:

  • Listen to other people. If someone tells you a word you’re using is hurtful or something you’ve done is not okay, don’t get defensive. Instead, listen to what that person is telling you, give a genuine apology, and accept that you’ve got some learning to do.
  • Focus on the impact, not the intent. It feels bad to know you’ve done something hurtful. It’s natural to want to explain that you didn’t mean to affect someone negatively. But the issue isn’t your intent, it’s the impact you’ve had on someone around you. Focus on reducing harm as a young peacemaker, not on explaining your intentions.
  • Pay attention to your thoughts and actions. You can learn to notice your biases by paying close attention to how you behave. Did you treat two classmates of different races differently? How and why? Start noticing these things and you can figure out what actions to take to change your behavior.

It’s important to understand that unlearning internal bias isn’t about you or your child feeling guilty or bad. It’s about learning how to treat other people better. That’s not just good for the world, it’s good for you, your family and your community!

You and your children can begin by:

  • Embracing other people’s differences: Welcome new people (classmates/neighbors/employees) and their unique experiences with open arms!
  • Being sensitive to someone else’s needs and feelings: If you notice something you’ve said rubs someone the wrong way, or they look uncomfortable in a certain setting, be ready and open to change.
  • Holding positive regard for other people you meet: Approach each new classmate like they are a friend you haven’t met yet.

Don’t allow assumptions and stereotypes to control your reactions. Instead, listen actively and adapt your communication style to the other’s cultural context. At the same time, show respect and positive regard through your manners.

And lastly, invite your children and grandchildren to attend multicultural events in your community to learn many different cultures. Experience their foods, traditions, clothing, dances and history. We all have a purpose and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can raise more peacemakers in the world.

JOIN THE MTA CLUB

Want to participate all year and be the first to learn about our new developments? Join the MTA Club by registering to donate each month through our website. Click the link and then check the box to Make this a monthly donation. For a limited time, MTA Club membership is open to any monthly amount of $10 or more.