by Ayesha Barrow

Created on: January 28, 2009   Last Updated: March 17, 2010

As a child that growing with an adult family member saying "Meet Ayesha my mentally backward daughter." I found it hard to believe that I was not backward, until I was at boarding school where I was told that I was dyslexic. I know words can and often do have an effect on child and all the way into adult hood because all I ever wanted to do was write for a living but was to scared to even apply for college.

While picking up my step daughter from school today, I had a parent come over to me. I lost all respect for her when she looked at me and in front of her child told me that her son was stupid and that he should be in special ed . This little boy is six years old but the hurtful look I saw on his face was stomach ranching and would never have expected it. How could somebody be so mean?

We as children didn't like it when other children call us names, so as an adult why would we forget how much it hurt was when we were children. My step son is thirteen and I am trying to teach him that name calling is not cool and can have a lasting effect . He came home from school the other day in a bad mood when I asked him why he said some of the kids had been calling him skinny and that he was a geek then an hour later called his sister a dumb blond. He could not understand why I and his sister got upset I told him to remember the kids at school and how he had felt .

We should all be very careful of what we say and how we say it because even in jest words can be hurtful and life changing. We all say hurtful things at times. But do you know that even if they do not hear you say it like "she's stupid" or "look at her nose she looks like miss piggy" somebody will eventually tell them and they will hurt, But they will hurt for a lot longer than the pain from a stick and leave scares that can not been seen but can effect their whole life.

I was told that I was backward for so long that I believed it to be true so much so that I was scared to go to college it was not until I was thirty six that I did go back to college, even to the point of pressing the publish button on this article, I have been so scared to write that I have a book of poems here that I have written but am too scared to send them to anyone to see if I can get them published.

So remember sitcks and stones can break your bones but words can hurt you for a lot longer than the stick's and stones can.

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