How to Deal with Bullying

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript from Robyn Lambird’s video on bullying and how parents can help their children cope and remain confident in their abilities.

By Robyn Lambird

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My name is Robyn Lambird and today I’m going to be doing a video for the lovely followers and parents of the Cerebral Palsy Family Network. I’ve been asked to do a video tackling the issue of bullying. I know it’s quite a difficult subject to talk about. Obviously, it’s a very serious issue. But I’m going to try my best to explain to you guys my personal experience with bullying and how I dealt with it.

My Experience

I grew up in a not-so-posh area of England up until I was about the age of ten. For me, I think, experiencing bullying and getting bullied was sort of unavoidable because in this certain area of England where I came from, they didn’t like anyone that was different at school. Anyone that was different for whatever reason, whether it was their fashion choice or their mental ability or whatever, they were targeted to be picked on. But I don’t think it’s necessarily important for me to speak about how I got bullied. I think it’s important for me to speak about how I deal with it, because it’s not the bullying that counts. It’s how you deal with it and how you let it affect you as a person.

Obviously, bullying is a terrible thing and nobody should have to experience it in a perfect world. But I do think that some positives can come out of the experience. For instance, now I think I’m a stronger person. I’m more confident within myself and also I can deal with difficult situations and confrontations. I have a higher level of empathy than most kids my age, I think, because I’ve had these experiences.

How Parents Can Help

This blog, as I understand it, is mainly for parents of children with disabilities. I’m going to be talking about my parents and how they’ve really helped me get through it because without my parents, my primary school days would have been a nightmare. I got bullied by my so-called “friends.” The way I mainly got bullied was through isolation. These “friends” of mine would say mean things to me; not necessarily related to my disability because I do think even little children have a sense that it’s wrong to pick on someone because of their ability. They were picking on my because I was different, because I had a disability, but it wasn’t based around that. The main thing they would do was say mean things to me and they would isolate me. They would say, “No, you’re not allowed to sit with me.” Because it was only a small school, a small area of England, I really didn’t have that many friends. And the people I should have been friends with, I wasn’t interested in because every kid chases after being popular. So, I desperately wanted to be in with the cooler kids.

Basically, my parents just told me it’s not my fault. For whatever reason, they’re picking on me, it’s not my fault. It’s their problem. They’re not confident enough in themselves, so they have to put other people down to make themselves feel better. It was just constant reassurance that things would get better and it wasn’t my problem; I was doing the right thing and I could stay strong through it. Bullying is a thing that a lot of people experience. That constant reassurance really helped me.

It Does Get Better

I’ve since moved to Australia. I moved to Australia when I was ten-years old. The kids here are a lot more accepting. They know it’s completely wrong to pick on people because of their ability or to pick on people for any reason. I don’t really think, especially at the school I go to, that there’s that much of an issue with bullying. I certainly haven’t experienced it since I got here. A lot of people have been very accepting. I know a lot of you guys are in America, so I’m not quite sure what the situation there is like. I’ve heard on television and such that you’ve got quite a big issue with bullying. But, like I said, I do think it can make you a stronger person. Obviously, it’s not something I would wish upon everyone.

You’ve got to just keep telling your child that it’s not their fault and it will get better. Go in and speak to the teachers if necessary. I know that my parents have done that and it did help. The teachers would not mention me but bring up to the class how it’s not nice to bully and that kind of thing. Just reassure your child that it’s not their problem and make them feel good about themselves while they’re at home. Explain that kids might not understand why you’re like that because they’ve never experienced it so they don’t know how to cope with it. That’s the best advice I can give really. And, it does get better. I certainly think as you get older, people are more aware. People realize it’s not your fault. You should keep reminding your child that it’s not their fault. They can’t help the way they were born.

I’ve only got quite mild cerebral palsy, so I’m sort of able to stand up for myself, especially now that I’m older. I don’t think that bullying is as bad the more severe the disability gets. I could just be saying that. Obviously, I’ve never experienced it. But in my opinion, I think that if you’ve got a mediocre disability, it tends to be harder because you’re still enough like the other children that they can see your weaknesses.

I hope that was helpful and I look forward to doing more vlogs for you in the future, if it helps. Just remember, you can get through it and it can make you a stronger person. And if you do stand up for yourself, especially when you’re a bit older, just say, “It’s not right. I can’t help it.” Education is important as well. Especially with parents educating other parents so they can educate their children. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for giving me a chance to vlog for the Cerebral Palsy Family Network. Cheers!

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$30 Gadget Lets You Control Computer With Your Eyes

September 25^th, 2012

By Tom Levitt

Take two video-game console cameras and one pair of horn-rimmed glasses and for around $30 you have a device that will allow you to control a computer or, potentially, even a wheelchair with your eyes.

Previously, if you wanted to buy similar eye-tracking equipment it would have cost you upwards of $8,000. Now, scientists in London have pioneered a device, the GT3D, using components anyone of us can buy from the shopping mall.

 

The breakthrough could help millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy and, potentially, opens the door to a new era of hands-free computers, allowing us to use them without a mouse, keyboard or touch screen.

For the lead researcher Dr Aldo Faisal, a neuroscientist at Imperial College in London, the new device only came about because of his obsession with disassembling gadgets.

"I like to play with gadgets and was playing with a popular video-game console," he said. "I hacked it and discovered it was very fast and better than any webcam for movement. Actually, it was so fast that I found we could record eye movement with it."

Tracking eye movement is no mean feat. Our eyes move 10 to 20 times a second, so a standard webcam or even film camera will miss most eye movements and where we are looking. As such, it is perhaps no surprise commercial eye-tracking devices are so expensive

Luckily for Faisal and his team of researchers, video game console makers have been willing to bulk buy the technology needed to make good enough cameras. They make a loss on the console cameras in the expectation of making it back on accompanying video game sales.

"We originally created the device for £39.80 ($64) but recent falls in the price of video game console cameras mean we could now actually make the same device for about £20 ($32)," says Faisal.

The eye-tracking device works by first establishing where the eyes are looking, through a relatively straight-forward calibration process. The user puts on the glasses, with the two attached cameras, and stares at a computer screen full of dots. They are then told to look at different dots, with software developed by the researchers working out how the eye looks at each dot.

Once calibrated, the device can be used to control a mouse on the screen and is so accurate that if you were in a normal-sized room and wearing the device it would be able to locate where you were looking to within the size of a grapefruit, say its developers.

Existing commercially available devices such as the Tobii PCEye and the EyeTech TM3 also allow users to control a computer with their eye instead of a mouse. Like the GT3D, they use two cameras and say they can be used to surf the web, send emails and do anything a handheld mouse can do -- but they are priced between around $5,000 and $7,000.

And if you search online, you will find many amateur attempts to create eye-tracking devices just like the GT3D. But Faisal says the difference with his is that it has been properly tested and proven to work -- a demonstration of his device has been published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Neuroscience.

Unsurprisingly, the interest in his technology has been huge, he says. Several companies have already approached him to develop and mass-produce the device. However, Faisal says, none have so far embraced his ambition for making it available at a low cost to millions. Instead, they all preferred to undercut existing eye-tracking devices by 10%.

"My mission is that we forge technology with neurological science to find ways to help millions of people with disabilities, such as loss of limbs or muscular disorders, use technology in a cheap way," said Faisal. "We want to make sure people can buy the device for no more than £80 ($125)."

If no commercial partner comes forward within the next year or two, Faisal says they will publish all the information about their device and software online and make it freely available for anyone to replicate.

For many disability campaigners, such a device cannot come soon enough. "Those with extreme muscle-wastage in their arms often rely on carers to work on a computer, cannot position themselves comfortably at a keyboard and quickly suffer fatigue from typing," says Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, director of research at the UK-basedMuscular Dystrophy Campaign, who calls it a "potentially life-changing innovation."

"It also offers us an exciting glimpse of future possibilities -- optical control of hoists, beds, blinds, kitchen and entertainment equipment. The impact of recovering the independence to do such things for disabled people, their carers -- and for family life -- would be vast,' she adds.

Faisal says it would already be possible to control a wheelchair with their device. The main obstacle is how to differentiate between where someone is looking at where they actually want to move to in the wheelchair. He says this has been overcome by his researchers through the use of a wink as a command trigger. "We use a wink rather than a blink because you never wink by accident," explained Faisal.

However, while he can see its popularity for disabled or elderly people, Faisal remains uncertain about whether cheap eye-tracking devices are ready to take over from the mouse and touch-screen computers. "Perhaps it will bring in a new era of hands-free computers. But there is a problem in that the computer industry is moving towards touch systems with the iPad, so I'm not sure the mass-market is going to embrace eye-movement just yet. Also, I am not sure it is ready for use with complicated applications like, for example, Photoshop."

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