PARIS – As a child, Bill Manning was tormented almost daily by bullies.

On Tuesday night, he told a group of students, parents and educators about his experiences as part of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School’s Respect Week. A skinny, pimply, 11-year-old boy, “I didn’t have many friends,” Manning said. One day, Manning took his baseball bat to school. He told a teacher that if his tormentor touched him one more time, “I’m going to kill him.”

That teacher happened to be a junior high school wrestling coach. Instead of punishing young Manning, he invited him to join the wrestling team and became his mentor. Manning continued to wrestle throughout school, building the self-esteem he needed to stop being the victim of bullies.

Lack of self-esteem, Manning told his audience, is both the reason children become bullies and the reason they become the victims of bullies. The job of the parent and educator is to build children’s feelings of self-worth. One of the ways to do this is by observing Manning’s rights of children.

Children have the right to find happiness, he said. Manning cautions that this does not mean parents should buy every toy a child asks for. “We must teach children that they have the power to find happiness,” Manning said, without relying on our possessions to bring happiness to us.

“We have to teach our children how to fail,” he said. “It’s not OK to not do something because of fear of failure.” By observing a child’s right to fail, parents and role models give them the power to try new things and break the link between a child’s self-esteem and his or her successes and failures.

Manning acknowledges, though, that “every kid is due some success.” He urged educators to point out the successes of even the poorest students and told parents to “be generous with praise, stingy with criticism.”

Another of Manning’s rights of children is the right to a mentor. Like the boy who found a friend in his wrestling coach, every child needs a trusted adult resource. Even adults can benefit from a mentor. Seventy-seven-year-old Manning himself has two. For a child, a mentor can be the most important factor in developing the self-esteem necessary to avoid becoming the victim of a bully.

Finally, he said, children have the right “to feeling good about themselves.” Being involved in activities, receiving praise and being loved for the person he or she is all help a child feel good about him or herself.

Manning ended the evening by pointing out that “the first step in producing high self-esteem in your child is to feel good about yourself.” He challenged each member of the audience to begin each day by reciting “I am good. I can do it. I’m No. 1 in my life.”

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