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Tease? No, Please: A Book That Teaches Kids to Just Say NO to Teasing and Bullying is beautifully written and addresses a subject that is not discussed enough at a young age. What was the inspiration for writing this children’s book?
The inspiration for writing this book stems from my passion to reduce teasing/bullying and the emotional impact it has on our children. Schools and schoolyards are meant to be a safe place for children to make friends, learn new things, and have fun. However, for some children, it can become a place of dread and anxiety due to teasing and bullying. The effects of bullying can have lasting psychological and emotional impacts on children, leading to school avoidance, depression, anxiety, and even suicide. All of us have been hurt by words and they may still hurt and haunt us even as adults because they have been conceived in our heart, establishing limitations in our lives. Teasing occurs more often in elementary school, intensifies in middle school, and slowly declines in high school. If we can tackle teasing at the outset during the impressionable ages of 5 or more, we can reduce the occurrences of teasing before it becomes a bigger problem.
What is one thing that you hope young readers take away from your book?
I hope young readers understand the harmful effects of teasing to guide their decision making, particularly the decision to not tease or make fun of others. My objective is for children to grow in empathy, kindness, and compassion.
How do you envision teachers and parents using your book to help children learn about and prevent bullying?
I envision teachers and parents using the book, Tease? No, Please!, to kickstart heart-to-heart conversations around the issue of teasing and bullying. There are many things that we try to explain to children but oftentimes don’t know how to convey in a way that will resonate with young minds. The book will help children to easily understand teasing and bullying from all perspectives – the target (victim), the teaser or bully, and the bystander. The book includes interactive activities that support the topic. Lesson plans are also available for teachers.
Is this the first book in the series for children on learning healthy mindsets? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
This is the first book of the series. The next book will be released in Spring 2024 and is centered around self-confidence. The protagonist (Molly) is faced with a new challenge at school. Stay tuned.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Throughout this engaging story, children will learn three important ways to handle teasing and bullying before it grows into a bigger and repetitive problem. Through rhymes and relatable examples, children will understand that it’s okay to have fun, but it’s never okay to make fun of others. They will also learn how teasing is like a sneeze, a tornado breeze, and stinky cheese! By the end of this book, children will have a greater understanding of what teasing and bullying are and how to handle these issues effectively.
This book includes fun concepts, simple similes, interactive activities and examples of positive self-talk to help readers learn how to prevent bullying and spread empathy, kindness, and compassion. Parents and educators are encouraged to teach children about teasing early to stop teasing and bullying at the outset and foster a healthy mindset of “Tease? No, Please!”.
This essential book encourages heart-to-heart discussions about:
Teasing
Bullying
Confiding in adults
Mixed emotions
Bystander behaviors
Assertiveness
Kindness
Compassion
Forgiveness
Self-love
Self-awareness
Tease? No, Please!
Bullying is such an important topic in schools. Unfortunately, parents and teachers are having to find new and more effective ways to cope with this ever-growing problem that impacts students both in and out of school. Teaching ways to both identify and combat bullying early in elementary school is a necessity, and Chrystal Epps-Bean’s book, Tease? No, Please: A Book That Teaches Kids to Just Say NO to Teasing and Bullying offers advice to children in a way they can easily understand.
Any time parents and teachers can utilize literature to help children deal with problems and provide relatable situations, our jobs are made easier. As both a mother and elementary teacher, I can see Epps-Bean’s book as a true asset in elementary classrooms. I love both the use of rhyme to make the book easy to follow and the incorporation of memory tools to help readers remember the provided advice. Readers will quickly pick up on the repetitive language throughout the book.
Differentiating between teasing and bullying is an incredibly difficult concept to teach young children. Even many adults tend to lump teasing and bullying into one category, but this author realizes the importance of making a distinction between the two. Epps-Bean creates a wonderful opportunity for parents and teachers to have some heart-to-heart discussions with children.
Tease? No, Please: A Book That Teaches Kids to Just Say NO to Teasing and Bullying, by Chrystal Epps-Bean is a book that school counselors, teachers, and parents alike will find useful in both instruction and intervention. The memory tools and activities included in the book are priceless tools for helping students distinguish between teasing and bullying and how to effectively deal with both.
Pages: 32 | ISBN : 978-1-7347310-5-7
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