He lives in a quiet neighborhood, just a few
blocks from school. But for 18-year-old Craig, who is openly
gay, the walk home is scary.
“Almost every week, people yell [names] out of their
car,” he says.
Once, it even came to blows.
“… [J]ust like started harassing me, and pushing
me, and calling me [names] and stuff like that,” Craig
says.
During that incident, Craig defended himself and even gave
the other boy a bloody nose. But his mother worries about
the next time.
“I worry that someone could beat him up or hurt him
and kill him even. That worries me a lot,” says Joan
Piaget, Craig’s mother.
Kids are bullied for all sorts of reasons – their race,
weight and even how they dress. But according to a recent
study from the National Mental Health Association (NMHA),
kids are twice as likely to be bullied because they’re
gay, or thought to be gay.
“And the impact of this on development is that you
close down, your self-esteem drops, you become angry with
other people, you don’t trust others – you don’t
trust your own sexual feelings,” says Dr. Lynn Ponton,
a child psychiatrist.
Dr. Ponton wrote a section of the NMHA study providing advice
to parents whose children are teased because they’re
gay. Whether children are gay or not, she says, if they’re
teased, their parents need to take strong action.
“I would sit down first, hear them out, listen to them,”
she says. “Then I would say, ‘We’ll go to
the school together. We’ll really work together as a
team.’ I would insist that the children who were doing
the name-calling – that they be contacted.”
Dr. Ponton says it’s important for parents to take
the lead because oftentimes the child will not.
“It’s embarrassing to be called [names] in front
of people,” Craig explains. “And it’s embarrassing
to go to someone and be like, this happened to me.”
He says it really helps to know his parents support him.
“My parents are wonderful people,” Craig says.
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