I Care Because - Being Yourself - Episode 22

The “I Care Because” section of our website features statements from individuals around the world, sharing why they care about bullying prevention. In this week’s episode of PACERTalks About Bullying, we had teens read and respond to one of these statements about uniqueness and being yourself, sharing their advice.

Transcript

>> Hey there, welcome back to PACERTalks about Bullying, I'm Bailey, we're glad you're here.

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This week, we are so excited to bring you another episode where teens read and respond a statement from I Care Because, a section of our website where individuals from all across the world share why they care about bullying prevention. Now, let's get into the episode.

>> I was bullied by nearly everyone in middle school and it had a lasting effect on me. Even though I did struggle in school that was not an excuse for others to treat me badly.

>> As I'm older, I continue to hold hope that new generations of kids like me will not have to grow up thinking that something is wrong with them and have to give up their uniqueness to protect themselves from judgment.

>> It is not a way to live one's life, especially not in childhood, in childhood where imagination should be celebrated instead of punished, Chelsea from California. I, I just, I hope one day that like bullying and judgment eventually will die down. It, I mean it's never going to stop really, just because that's not how the world works but I personally think as long as we spread positivity and kindness around that it will eventually happen. And I still think it's really sad that people get bullied.

>> There are songs out there and that tell you don't change yourself just to fit in with the crowd and some people struggle to do that, like me. I try to fit in the best that I can, so I try to change myself, but I realized from what my mom said, don't change yourself, you're perfect, so I'm passing on her wisdom, don't change yourself no matter what people say to do. Like if somebody tells you don't wear something, wear it anyways because it's your body, it's your clothes, you do what you want. And if, if you want to do something randomly weird, just do it.

>> I think that new generations of kids should be celebrating their imaginations and creativity and what they like in life than instead of being punished. Uniqueness is like a thing where like it's just unique and that also should be celebrated, not, I mean would you rather live in a world where everybody like all looked the same and acted the same because that's pretty boring in my opinion. It's like good to have different and be different because then you can be like hey, I'm the only one in the world who's just like me.

>> And that's a wrap on this week's episode of PACERTalks About Bullying. Thank you so much to the amazing teens in this episode who shared their ideas and advice. We'll see you right back here next week, and remember; together we can create a world without bullying. See ya!

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