Newtown? It's My Town: 8 Things Kids Can Do To Help Prevent Violence

You may have heard from your parents, teacher or the media about the tragic events that took place in Newtown, CT on December 14th, 2012.  What happened truly hits home for me, because Newtown is my hometown.

My name is Mike Stutman, and I am the co-founder of InspireMyKids.com, and more importantly a husband and father.  I started InspireMyKids.com to help my kids and other children experience great people and great values in action in the hope that this will help inspire them to make good decisions with their lives and make the world a better place.

In honor of the community and children of Newtown, I want to devote this post to what you can do to stop violence in your own town and in the world.  By changing your thinking and your behavior and helping others you can truly change the world.

To start, here are 8 suggestions:

• Be very careful what you read, watch and play.  Stay away from violent movies, games, apps and books.    Commonsense Media provides awesome tools to help you and your parents/teacher make good choices about your media.
• Be kind to others and help others in need.  Here are some wonderful stories of kindness in action.
• Stand up against bullying.  See how Jaylen Arnold did so in a big way.  And read other inspiring stories of people saying no to bullying
• Find a positive role model or mentor.  Whether your parent, your teacher, a mentor or an inspiring person whether they are an athlete or musician.
• If you see something, say something.  If someone you know is talking about doing something violent, let an adult know as soon as possible.
• Settle arguments with words, not fists and find a responsible adult to help settle the dispute.
• Be emphathetic:  “feel through your skin” what other people are feeling.
• If you see someone isolated and alone in your school, take the time and make the effort to get to know them as a person.  See how the Queen Creek high school football team did this with Chy Johnson

What are your ideas about how to prevent violence in your community? Please leave your comments below, visit our Facebook Page or email me: mike@inspiremykids.com.

While you are working on improving your own actions, I pledge to you that I will do everything I can do with other adults to help make needed changes in our society that will help prevent tragedies like this in the future.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.