Tag Archives: school

4 Steps To Help Kids Prepare For College

06/29/2021 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

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Your kids going to college is one of the bittersweet moments of any parents’ life. While you might be more proud than you could ever imagine, you’re also worried about how they will cope in the big world all by themselves. Of course, there are thighs you can do before they go to college that will prepare them, and this includes everything from knowing how to stand out to how to stay sensible.

Know How to Stand Out

You can help your child prepare for college before they even get accepted to any specific school. For many, this could be what gives them the edge over other applicants, and services such as college consulting will allow them to stand out from the crowd and hit the ground running once they arrive. If you or your partner never went to college, these services can be vital for helping your teen understand what’s expected of them and how to make sure they can handle the work (and the freedom) that often trips unprepared college students up.

Learn Some Independence and Responsibility

Going off to college is often a child’s first taste of freedom, which can go one of two ways. Either they take their freedom for granted, or they understand how to have fun and stay on course. Before they pack their life away and move into a campus dorm, you can encourage them to get a summer job to teach them responsibility and earn some money so that they have some financial independence, as well as an idea of what a career could be, for the semester and beyond.

Encourage Them to Socialize

Back in the day, college students showed up at their dorm and introduced themselves to their roommate for the first time. But, this is not the case any longer. Social media will give your teen the chance to chat with other freshmen starting at the same time. Some colleges will use Facebook or other platforms to put people in touch with one another so they can learn a little about other students, giving them a fledgling network of fellow students (who could become friends) before they even arrive.

Remind Them You’re Just a Phone Call Away

You might be freaking out about your child heading off to college, and although they are putting on a brave face, they might be equally as terrified. They might get cold feet on the day of the big move, so you must be strong and remind them that you’re just a phone call away. You won’t be able to solve all of their problems, but you can offer advice whenever they need you, and this can be enough to encourage them to follow through with their college career and feel confident.

Life’s Next Step

While not everyone will (or should) go to college, there is a significant portion of the teen population that will, and they will have the time of their lives. But, as it is the first taste of freedom for many, there’s a risk of struggling to maintain a routine. By helping them prepare for college, you can send them off ready to succeed, and set them up for life, too.

Life, Lifestyle, Parenting

Bullying at School? Advice for Parents to Help Kids With This Serious Problem

05/27/2021 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

When out in the world, bullying can be the first traumatic experience your child may have to go through. Unjustified aggressive behaviors from a bully can make your child feel rejected and unaccepted. However, it not only affects the victim, but it also affects the bully, which gives birth to much bigger problems in the future of these kids.

Apart from the immediate pain of bullying, victims are more likely to develop physical and emotional disorders in the future. However, bullying is not only physical, and it comes in many forms. Apart from physical abuse, it can be in the manners of social abuse, verbal abuse, and cyberbullying. These all may come in different patterns, but they leave a very similar effect on the victim, which leads to a harmful and lasting impact on your child’s health.

Few Lasting Effects of Bullying Are:

— Anxiety.

— Loss of self-confidence.

— Depression.

— Change in eating habits.

— Losing interest in school.

— Self-isolation.

So, when you are a parent, how do you prevent bullying at school and keep your kids out of harm’s way? An effective way to stop it is by communicating with your child from early childhood, especially in school.

However, that is not enough. You may have to take some extra steps to ensure your child has a bright future as an adult. Here are the measures you need to take that’ll ensure your kid’s bright future. Let’s get started:

Seeking Help from a Counselor

When you find your child to be a victim or perpetrator of this behavior, seeking professional help from a counselor becomes very crucial. For victims of bullying, counseling can help teach them ways to cope with a bully, thus breaking the victimization cycle. Simultaneously, a counselor will help them in building their self-confidence.

Additionally, with the help of therapy, the victim can learn to manage complex emotions like anxiety, guilt, shame, and sadness. Despite the age of the child, they will need guidance. A counselor will help them learn the importance of developing assertiveness and proactive communication with the parents and the teachers at school.

Furthermore, a counselor will teach a victim therapeutic ways to enhance self-relaxation, such as mindfulness, expressive arts, and meditation. So when you enlist a victim in therapy, you are providing them with a safe outlet. It’ll help them in dealing with their frustration and Anxiety with a trusted and qualified adult.

Boost Your Kid’s Self Confidence

A child that does not lack self-confidence is more likely to have better self-esteem. However, to give your child the confidence they need to tackle the outside world, parents play an essential role. Make sure you encourage them to make creative choices at school or home.

When your child is making difficult decisions, they get better at problem-solving, which can help them with bullying. Also, children who take part in activities have more self-confidence than those who are not active at school. These activities can be playing sports, learning a musical instrument, or dancing.

As long as your child has friends at school, the chances of getting bullied at school become significantly less. If you find your child has fewer friends at school, encourage them to join a school club or their choice. Also, they can try volunteering in a social activity, take an exciting part in a school play are some of the most compelling ideas. Having friends with similar interests will again help them keep bullies away.

Soon, they will start gaining success in the activities they have chosen. With a new sense of achievement, your child will feel more confident and more able to deal with it. The new skills they have gained will make them feel proud. As a result, they make new friends at school and help other students facing a similar situation.

Get Involved With Your Kids

Try to stay up to date with your child’s school events. Knowing what’s going on in the school will allow you to get involved with your kids when they are in school—volunteer to help in school activities by joining events.

As a result, you get a perfect opportunity to become acquainted with your child’s friends and teachers. Knowing how and with whom they spend their time in school will ensure that your kids aren’t getting bullied at school. And if they are being bullied, you can discuss the problems with the school authority and find a solution to deal with this problem.

Make sure you don’t miss reading school flyers or class newsletters that come to your home. Discuss them with your kids, so they know you are keen to take part in them. Further, it can help you understand the policies related to bullying at school and what to do when your child faces such a situation.

Lead by Example

Children learn from what they see and based on that, they develop a behavior. That’s why it becomes crucial for a parent to treat others with respect. Try using phrases such as “thank you” and “please” and be more kind towards others. Your kids will follow your lead and become a more functional part of society. Also, it will help them in building healthy habits that can assist them in their personal and professional lives.

If you are a parent of a young child, educate them about the importance of being fair and humble, so they play nicely at school. Tell them to respect others’ feelings and choices, and they cannot just take anything they want. If they need anything, they should ask for their permission first. This will help your child not become a bully.

To Sum it Up

Bullying is one of the most prevalent problems affecting the youth today. So, if a child is a victim of this unhealthy behavior, they can develop long and short-term consequences. However, if you give your child the benefit of some extra care, they can easily find their way out of this issue. The steps mentioned above will help your child deal with specific situations. Plus, helping them in building self-confidence.

Life, Tips

What to Expect When Students Sue?

04/02/2021 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

People the world over have heard of the woman who sued McDonald’s when she spilled hot coffee and burned her legs. She won and went home with a $460,000 settlement. Other people laughed when they heard a judge in Washington, D.C. sued a dry cleaner for losing his pants. He requested $67 million in damages, lost the case, and ended up being suspended. He spent over 15 years litigating the case before that happened. Today, several students are choosing to sue their universities for a variety of reasons. What should a school expect when a student sues?

Notable Cases

The University of Winnipeg in Canada faced a lawsuit when a professor gave a student a B+ as opposed to an A. The B.C. The Ministry of Advanced Education ended up in court when a student sued after the university stopped payment on his student loan. He sued for $1.5 million when he dropped out of Dalhousie University and failed to let anyone know he had done so. People might assume the lawsuits are rare, but nothing remains further from the truth.

The University of British Columbia came out on top when a woman pursuing her master’s degree in English sued for religious discrimination. She requested $18 million only to have a Supreme Court of B.C. judge dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence to support her claim. The judge also awarded costs to the university. Students may wonder if they should pursue a claim with so many coming out on the losing end. Schools lose regardless of whether they win or lose the suit. It’s best to speak to an attorney at feldman.law to determine the best course of action when a school finds they are being sued.

Legitimate Claims

Many students sue their school and win. The problem lies in knowing which cases have merit and which are frivolous. Men and women who read the headlines need to dig deeper, as the newspaper cannot show the complexity of the case in a few words. Certain cases need to go to court, as when the student was a victim of discrimination or wrongdoing. This doesn’t consider intellectual property ownership cases that often end up being decided in the student’s favor. Nevertheless, schools often find they are being sued without a valid basis for the legal action.

Speaking to an attorney serves as the best option, as many schools choose to settle when a case has substance. Furthermore, a successful lawsuit often leads to changes in the school’s policies and procedures. This ensures the school doesn’t face similar challenges in the future. The reason it seems so many frivolous cases make it to court lies in the fact schools refuse to settle when they realize the student is trying to get money with no basis. These cases make it into the newspaper, where they draw a great deal of attention. Nevertheless, schools don’t find these cases amusing.

The Problem Behind These Lawsuits

Attorneys representing schools today rarely want to speak to the press, as they worry about being sued for slander, breaching the confidentiality of their clients, or encouraging others to file similar suits. The United States has a reputation for being a litigious society, and other nations continue to see an increase in lawsuits. People in those countries watch what happens in America and want to see if they get similar results.

Schools dread lawsuits, as do their attorneys. These legal cases take time and disrupt operations for the legal team and the academic staff. The school spends large amounts of money to fight the suit, which may take years before reaching a conclusion. This wastes resources. However, certain suits have merit and need to be heard in a court of law. For this reason, people must take every claim seriously until authorities finish an investigation. This ensures schools and courts address legitimate suits, as they bring to light necessary reforms.

A Place to Turn

Lawyers in Canada recognized this was a problem decades ago. They opted to come together as a group to share information. This group, known as CAUS, often looks to case law coming from the United States, as they recognize many trends start south of their border. What they have noticed over the years is some claims have merit, but the plaintiff requests an outrageous sum of money. This leads to the case being deemed frivolous when the facts call for legal action.

The problem lies in the costs associated with fighting a charge, even one that has no merit. A school has no choice but to fight the claim, even when doing so can take years before the matter is settled. The Maughan case serves as a good example of the damage that occurs when a frivolous lawsuit makes its way into the legal system.

The Maughan Case

In November of 2000, a student sent out an email to graduate students in the English department. This email joked about how he recalled with fondness a time when the stoning of Christians was acceptable. He followed this statement with a smiley emoticon, but not everyone took it as a joke. Cynthia Maughan, an Anglican Christian graduate student, became offended and shared her opinion with those who received the email.

Months later, the student held a meeting at his home for students in a graduate-level seminar. Ms. Maughan refused to attend, although she was in the class. She didn’t bring up religion in relation to her reason for not attending the meeting. Time passed and the professor gave Ms. Maughan unsatisfactory marks on some coursework. The bad marks, along with the e-mail and meeting, led her to conclude atheism was being encouraged and that the school denied her academic and religious freedom.

Ms. Maughan complained to the university. This complaint went through the internal appeal process to the Senate Appeal Committee and Ms. Maughan lost. Besides complaining to the university, she did the same under the Human Rights Code. Finally, Ms. Maughan took her case before the Supreme Court of British Columbia, naming the university and four English professors in the suit. Three of these professors did nothing more than write letters of support for Dr. Weir during the internal investigation.

UBC claimed the lawsuit was frivolous when it reached the Supreme Court in March 2003. Attorneys for the school argued it was without merit and offered to pay Ms. Maughan $1 to end the case. She rejected the offer, and it was another four years before the case ended. By then, Ms. Maughan was representing herself and even gave six weeks of personal testimony in 2007 in the courtroom.

The court ordered Ms. Maughan to pay legal costs, but the attorney for UBC states she will only end up paying approximately 60 percent of what the school spent defending itself. In the past, students wouldn’t question the judgment of a professor, and lawsuits were unheard of. Today, students contradict their instructors, but this serves as only one reason schools have seen an increase in legal suits.

Additional Factors Contributing to Lawsuits Against Schools

Students believe schools have large amounts of money, due in part to the rising cost of tuition. Furthermore, liberal values continue to be promoted, ones that emphasize individual rights and personal freedom. Men and women see these schools as soft targets and choose to sue. This doesn’t consider how students feel about their school records and how it will impact their future.

Students worry bad grades will prevent them from getting into their school of choice or their desired job. They have a sense of entitlement and blame others when they don’t get the grade they feel they desire, for example. This doesn’t mean a student should sit quietly when treated unfairly. Lawsuits have a role in society, as a lawsuit provides individuals with a place to turn when they receive unfair treatment. For this reason, each case needs to be examined independently. Additionally, schools need to put measures in place that allow students to be part of the decision-making process in school matters. Internal reviews and investigations provide students with a means to have their voices heard.

The reviews and investigations become of great help when there is a complaint, a dispute, or a student is disciplined. A clear and fair process helps to prevent lawsuits. Students may present their case, much as they would in a legal setting. Until every school has this type of system, however, students need to learn from Ms. Maughan’s case. She is looking at years to pay off the legal costs incurred by the school. This may be enough to deter other students from filing lawsuits that have no merit. When these cases stop, everyone wins.

Any school facing a lawsuit from a student needs to seek legal advice immediately. This ensures the rights of the educational institute remain protected at all times. Nobody wants to learn when a student is suing, as schools are there to help people grow and learn. Sadly, this does happen, and every school needs to be prepared. A good attorney handles these cases regularly and knows how best to proceed to get the matter resolved. Get help right away to allow the school to move past the suit and continue with its purpose of educating students for a better future.