Inventing ZORGOS!

Excited by the challenge, I pulled out my thesaurus, my rhyming dictionary, and my Greek lexicon. I went to freetranslation.com and typed in a bunch of words like personal power, assertiveness, tolerance, structure, self-esteem, resect, love, kindness and all the other ingredients that can stop bullying in its tracks. And somewhere out of the blue, the mythical-sounding word Zorgos came to me, as if on its own accord.

I teach Zumba®, and love the energy of the big 'Z' in their logo. I love the words zoom and zig zag and so many other 'Z' words because they are full of such positive power and fun and remind me of what it's like to be a kid. And yet there is some danger in the big 'Z' too, like Zorro with his slashing blade.

Zorgos is very close to the names of some pretty bad bullies. In the movie Zathura, the Zorgons are giant lizards who eat people. In The Fifth Element, Gary Oldman played the hilarious supervillain Zorg... (and who could forget Emperor Zurg?) But when I did my research on this word that was speaking to me, I found out what zorgos really means: it's the first-persion future sense of the esperanto word for care. And where care is... bullying is not. 

Fortunately, mom loved the word, too, and hopes that it is something children can relate to in finding their own power to stand up for themselves, stand up for one another, and get what they want without being mean. We mention it just a few times in The Bullying Antidote, which provides parents with dozens of ways to understand and diffuse the bullying dynamic — and to teach their kids to do the same. We hope that the word will strike the imaginations of parents and teachers, and for all of the heavy issues surrounding bullying and violence and abuse, give them a humorous, light-hearted, positive "hook" to hold on to that will help them start talking and solving the problems.