Connect with Mindbubble:

Posts by Anita

Bullying: Does it Stop at the School Gates?

Most people I know would say they were totally against bullying whether it be in schools, in the work place or out and about. Yet of late, I’ve started to notice a big divide between what people say they believe about bullying and what people do about it.

The first instance happened at my daughter’s school where a mother of a girl accused of bullying (and fairly justly accused if you look at the evidence) announced to the playground that if her daughter pulled someone else’s hair or called them horrible names she wasn’t bullying but just having a laugh.

The second instance happened at a birthday party where I heard an eight-year tearfully tell her mother she was being excluded by X. It was a situation made worse by X’s mother’s response that her daughter liked to be ‘in charge’ so it was lucky she was so popular.

These two instances are not just cases of parents sticking up for their offspring, but examples of adults who seem to think bullying is something else entirely.

So it doesn’t really surprise me that new figures show there has been an increase of bullying at work in the UK with one in 10 employees experiencing harassment, and one-third of workers saying they were bullied in the past six months.

I recently did a talk to a group of parents about teen bullying and was amazed at not only what many of them thought about bullying but also at what so many of them put up with in their own work lives.

It made me think that if we want bullying to be stamped out it’s not only kids that we have to educate. We have also start a wider discussion with parents, employers and employees about what bullying consists of, and why we should stand up to it.

If you think that would be pretty obvious take a look at the list below. It’s my responses to the Q&A at the end of the session:

1. Bullying is not a rite of passage that all kids have to go through.
2. Bullying doesn’t make a person stronger
3. Victims don’t need to ‘learn how to take a joke’
4. Bullies aren’t always cowards that can be scared off
5. It is possible to do something about bullying
6. Bullying isn’t just a kid phase
7. You can prove workplace bullying
8. Cyber-bullying is ‘real’ bullying

For help and guidance about bullying go to Directgov

Share on Facebook

Is Grey Hair Sexy?

Getting your first silver grey hair is a defining moment. I spied mine a few days after I hit 40. Perhaps it was coincidence, or the fact I was just looking a bit harder for signs of ageing but soon after that they seemed to appear at a daily rate.

Having very dark hair I decided that being streaked with silver streaks made me look bonkers and crazy rather than chic and sophisticated so I choose to colour my hair. Personally, even though I have to do it every 6 weeks I feel it’s worth every penny but that doesn’t mean I hate my grey bits or hate seeing grey hair on others.

On some of my friends grey hair looks amazing and even fashionably edgy so it does irritate me when I hear women freaking out about going grey and commenting on those who dare to go the whole hog.

Jennifer Aniston being one such person who apparently ‘flipped out and cried’ when she found her first grey hair and poor old Nicole Kidman who got media slammed when she dared to hit the red carpet with her grey roots on show a few years back.

Which is why I am loving Jennifer Lopez who has not only dared to appear with her 3 inch roots on show but who has just readily admitted that she has had to have her hair dyed every two weeks as she began going grey at age 23.

“My mom and my dad both went grey at a young age and I did too. And once I got started doing movies I started to grey. It was the stress, the pressure.”

All of which means if you want to go about your business with long roots do it with pride. If you want to dye it and pluck the odd grey hair with tweezers (Demi Moore’s rumoured guilty secret) go for it. And if you decide to become a silver foxtress then rest assured you’re in very good female company.

Meryl Streep in the Devil Wears Prada, model Kristen McMenamy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dame Judi Dench, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Lopez – the list of grey haired beauties is thankfully endless.

So what do you think? Does grey equal sexy or ageing? Let me know on Twitter

Share on Facebook

Is the Future Pink?

When my four year old daughter was a baby, I dressed her in every colour under the sun and of course, because she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t complain.

Now that she’s four she’s a lot more vocal about what she wears and most of the time she wants something to be pink or princess related and if the two combine…well, that’s just four year old heaven.

Translated it means she loves pink over and above every other colour so much so that over time she has demanded that her plate, cutlery, lamps, socks and knickers etc. all become pink. It’s an obsession that’s fuelled by shops, which sell 95% of their girl stuff in pink and thereby convince her, that this is the only colour she should have in her life.

It’s irritating but it only annoyed me in a small way until I went to buy her a pair of trainers last week. Want a pair that’s not pink and doesn’t come with flowers, ribbons, bells and sequins? Well, tough because they evidently only manufacture girly princess trainers, made presumably for girls to tip toe about on, and not to kick a ball with.

Looking closer at what’s actually being sold to girls I also spotted a pink globe, pink board games, pink footballs and numerous books about pink princesses, pink princess dogs and even a pink princess horse!

And this pink princess message is one that seems to be arising just in time for the Royal Wedding with one American company launching Princess Prep – a luxury sleep-away princess camp for girls aged 8 – 11 based in London. In other words, a camp where your little princess can actually be a princess for a whole week.

Worse still the founder says so many mothers are saying they that they wish they could attend Princess Prep too that she’s considering setting up a similar programme for adult women!

With celebrities like Rihanna and Cheryl Cole also going down the pink-is-me path and others like Jordan dressing like a Disney Princess all the time, she may be right in thinking there is indeed an untapped market for grown women to be all things pink.

Should I dust off my tiara and prepare for my favourite stores to start selling floor to ceiling pink to me? I hope not.

Let me know your thoughts.

Share on Facebook

Oh Dear, It’s Valentine’s Day…

For years, I was convinced that Valentine’s Day was nothing but an evil ploy to persecute all single people. And even though I am now married, I still have exactly the same feelings.

Maybe it’s because I’m about as romantic as a bunch of flowers from a petrol station, or perhaps its because I am inundated with advice mails every February from single people feeling left out, confused to why they are single and worried that they’ve somehow missed the love-boat for good.

Whichever it is, lately I have been feeling for my single girlfriends, some of whom are freaking out about Valentine’s Day in a MAJOR way.

‘I can’t be Carrie (from Sex and the City)’, says one. ‘It’s just too sad.’

‘I can’t be at home on VD watching TV like a loser again,’ says another, not realising that this is exactly what married people/couples do on Valentine’s Day.

Yet, despite my words of wisdom telling them that single Carrie actually had it quite good (married Carrie being irritatingly whiny and dull), both friends are now busy every night of the week doing their utmost to meet new men.

Most of this has translated into them taking classes – Zumba classes, street dance classes, Italian language classes and some new throw-yourself-around-the-room class at the local gym. Five weeks in and they are still single partly because they’re probably too exhausted to flirt and also because the classes are full of women.

However, the upside is they look fantastic (ironically a bit like Beyonce and co in the Single Ladies video) and both say they have gone from feeling like dried up old spinsters (their words not mine) to feeling amazing about themselves.

Which makes me think perhaps Valentine’s Day isn’t such a useless day after all. Maybe it can be re-sold to singletons (and the rest of us) as a way to motivate yourself to grab life and not just sit waiting on the sidelines until someone chooses you.

It probably won’t sell too many cards but I think it would make lots of women out there about a hundred times happier with their life.

Am I just being bah humbug about romance or do you agree? Let me know.

illustration courtesy of http://www.meish.org/vd/card/cliche

Share on Facebook

A Few Tricks on How to Stop the January Rot

I know from being an agony aunt for many years that January, for many feels like the bleakest of months. Horrible grey weather, post Xmas debt, and extra poundage from all those mince pies, all of which means most of us feel blue and lacking in motivation. And of course this year feels especially vile, thanks to the VAT hike, the doom laden stories in the news and the fact that everyone has a cold that seems to have started in November and is still going strong.

Part of the problem is that a New Year makes us all reflect in a negative way, which is why so far this week one friend has decided she needs a facelift, a lottery win and perhaps even a new husband. And another claims she is fat, poor, and stuck in a rut. The list of woes is endless and without sounding like a horrible and selfish friend, it’s somewhat depressing to hear.

I want to shout STOP but I know I am just as guilty. Lose three stone (and my seven bellies). Sign up for a marathon, write a novel, sort my finances out, get rid of all the tat in my house, be nicer to my husband and my kids, be a better friend. My list of what I think is wrong is endless so no wonder if feel so horrible.

So in a quest to stop the January rot, here is how I’m going to cheer up:

+ I will remind myself it’s nearly Spring! Okay it doesn’t feel like it but it’s only 2 months away.

+ I’m going to ignore my Christmas weight gain (plus I am reliably informed it will naturally disappear by month end if I go back to normal portions and throw away the Quality Street).

+ I’m going to celebrate the fact there’s an extra bank holiday this year thanks to the royal wedding.

+ I’m going to sort out my finances by keeping a money diary (depressing but it works)

+ I will ignore all stupid ‘Today is the most depressing/poorest/bleakest day of the year’ stories, based on the fact that the so-called mathematical equations are nonsense.

+ I’m going to be grateful for what I have

+ I’m going to take a note out of my children’s books, enjoy being silly, live for the moment and when I feel angry scream VERY LOUDLY until I feel better!

So how do you stop January from getting you down? Let me know.

Share on Facebook

Men and Xmas Presents: Tips to Pass On To Your Loved Ones…

I have a friend who is excellent at buying gifts, wrapping gifts and somehow making you feel extra special with the way he even writes the gift tag. His Christmas presents are not only beautiful, but well thought out and seeped in obvious time investment and purchase enjoyment.

Getting a present from him is in many ways as exciting as the gift itself, but sadly, he’s not my husband who is known among his friends for once buying an ex-girlfriend an electric razor for Christmas, because he says, ‘She was always moaning about her hairy legs!’

Every year my husband claims to be terrified that I am going to hate what he buys me, and so he either gets me to tear a picture out of a magazine and Google map the shop address or says, ‘Let’s not do gifts this year’.

To my knowledge I have never turned my nose up at any gift he has bought me, or sent one back, but in his mind I am a woman who is hard-to-buy-for.

This, I am reliably informed by another male friend, is because I am, like many women (including his ex-girlfriend) – ‘high maintenance, dressed as low maintenance’.

Meaning I say I’d be happy with anything, but really that’s a bare-faced lie!

A quick straw poll of my friends’ partners seems to point the same way. ‘It’s impossible to know what you women want,’ says one man who begs to remain anonymous, ‘because really what you want is something you would buy yourself’, which I agree would make buying a present somewhat difficult.

So if your partner/husband/boyfriend is stressed out about buying you a present this year, and you don’t want to be stuck with lap dancer lingerie, or a present that you secretly want to re-gift, here are my top tips for buying-women-gifts… Do feel free to pass on to your loved ones before the big day.

> Don’t buy a present for me, that’s really for you

> Don’t buy personal hygiene gifts

> Don’t buy me the same thing as last year

> Avoid any gifts that hint at self improvement

> Do wrap your gifts (extra tip most shops will do it for you)

> Don’t get your mum (or mine) to buy it – I will find out and be VERY peeved

> Do listen to my present hints

Never ever listen to your friends ‘great’ ideas

And it really as easy as that! So how does your man fare on the present buying front? Is he a marvel, or a disaster, I’d love to know.

Share on Facebook

Bullying on the X-Factor: Has Online Bullying Become the New Gossip?

I love X Factor (go on hate me)! I love the good, the bad and the ugly, the appalling styling and even the smug judges, but recently what I’ve begun to hate (and please excuse the forthcoming rant) is the bullying that’s become synonymous with the show.

If it’s not the contestants bullying each other off camera, or the judges ganging up on each other on screen, it’s viewers launching online hate campaigns against the competitors.

The latest and most ironic of which, features a You Tube video that has had almost one million hits accusing one contestant of being a bully!

Now I’m no angel when it comes to having a good laugh at a contender’s expense, but I’ve started to notice that the majority of what’s being ranted and raved about online is nearly always a dig at a female contestant’s body, face and/or reputation.

And at times this ‘chat’ is so vitriolic, nasty and spiteful that I doubt any of the people chatting would have the guts to say it aloud in real life.

But by far my biggest gripe with all of this is it has now become so normal to bitch via tweets and Facebook that people I used to consider sane, think it’s perfectly acceptable to say and do whatever they like when posting a comment.

Whether that’s intimidating someone on a forum, launching a “hate” group or spreading defamatory and destructive gossip for a laugh.

What’s more, even though most sites will disable accounts that breach rules on bullying, most of these people don’t give this a second thought.

Either because they don’t consider their online behaviour off centre or simply because they truly believe they have the right to express whatever they want, even if it’s hateful.

So what’s a person to do? Well for me, I think it’s about looking at what I say and agree with online and also thinking hard before I hit that ‘tweet’ button, even when watching a harmless TV show.

After all, as my mother would say, ‘If you’ve got nothing nice to say, just don’t say anything.’

Your thoughts please…

Share on Facebook