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Sure it is . The bullies we dealt with generally didn't have the 24/7 access tot eh victim like they do now. Social media makes a huge difference in access.

   

W/o Facebook they're very socially isolated. If you can't be in contact 24/7 you might as well live on the moon. And that of course isolates them even more at school, since they're not maintaining their connections.

It's a bit strange what happened with this girl. She was at a new school, where she made good connections and was doing well. She had friends there. I guess when this internet stalker found her there it just drove her over the edge. Too bad she didn't feel she had the support she apparently had.

   

That is usually the case.
One person can drive you to suicide, whether you have no support or 100's of friends.

Suicide is not about others. It is about yourself. Anyone can tell you how fabulous you are, but if you can't believe/agree/just don't see it, it doesn't matter.

   

   

I blame parents. Parents aren't teaching their kids about technology. Sure, it's partly that the parents don't understand the technology themselves. But parents are simply allowing their children WAY TOO MUCH access to internet and cellphones. If we're going to let our children loose in cyberspace, we need to educate them about cyberspace and cyberbullying. We should be letting them wade slowly into the cyberworld but, instead, we're letting them dive into the deep end of the ocean, without supervision or any kind of life jacket, and wondering why they can't swim.

Someone needed to teach this poor girl about the potential fallout that could come from photographing her boobies. Now I'm not trying to deflect any blame away from the anti-social turds that bullied the girl, but the problems began with this girl letting down her guard and not understanding the consequences that could come from flashing her boobs.

   

I blame parents. Bullies raise bullies. Plenty of adult bullying goes on, then adults get all sanctimonious because the kids do it in a more in your face manner. Adults play power games all the time. You can see it on this forum, for that matter.

   

   

I've heard very different tales of what happened here. It's all over the map.

   

   

She was twelve. Anybody that wants to make this her fault in any way is an idiot.

The perv who stalked her could and should be charged with distributing child porn. Just as with the girl in Pitt Meadows. They didn't have enough evidence to press rape charges, but the guy who took pics of her vagina is in deep shit, I would think. I believe the trial is ongoing right now.

It sounds like she made good friends at the last school she was at. I wonder if she didn't also make them in the first two schools, and where were those "friends" when she was being bullied?

   

It's actually pretty hard for me to talk about but I went through a lot of similar stuff as a teen because I was tormented for being perceived as gay even though I was going out with women throughout most of my school days.

It culminated with a few suicide attempts since my parents got divorced around the same time I was in high school. Life can be very very hard on kids when they have nowhere to go for simple acceptance.

People can talk all they want about how "In my day..." but none of that applies to bullies who now use technology to full advantage in making life a hell for kids. You can't punch out a text message behind your back or kick a facebook post calling you a fag.

Granted most of these new tools were not in the toolbox in the days when I was a victim but I know how hard this is on those kids. It has to stop.

I will always remember when I took two entire bottles of painkillers to try and kill myself and passing out on the bed feeling sick as hell hoping it was finally all over. When I woke up a few hours later I called my dad and refused to attend school any longer. You can imagine the reaction of my dad who had left on a field trip for few days while I was doing all this.

It actually took that much for school officials to get involved in stopping the bully situation despite the fact I'd taken many of the little pricks to the office multiple times and even had a few sessions with councilors.

After the incident two students were permanently suspended from the school for harassment and abuse of another student. Five others were suspended for varying lengths of time.

So when I read Amanda's story you will have to forgive me if you see a grown man shed a tear or two. School's powers have been so dumbed down it's now up to the students and parents to stand up for the kids.

   

There was just a story in the paper about a man who was called fag all thru highschool. His 25 y/o daughter found his year book, where even there he was called fag. This finally motivated him to demand the school reprint that page, because the book is still sitting on display at the school.

There's a nice myth promoted on this forum: just stand up the the bully and bada bing your problems are over. If the bully is significantly bigger than you are, good luck with that. If you're being bullied by a group, good luck with trying to fight your way to not being bullied. If the whole school is calling you fag to the point it's printed in the year book, you can't fight that.

What does work is creating an environment that gets people to stand up for each other. Bullying continues because the bystanders don't intervene. Just punishing the bullies must makes them feel bullied and more resentful. The adults have to set up and environment where bullying is not tolerated by the majority of kids. Many schools are doing this, where they involve the kids in these programs. Apparently it helps a lot.

Don't know what to do about kids that even the teachers are cruel to. We had a guy like that in highschool. I tried to be friendly to him, but there was just something about him that made that impossible, so I just left him alone. I heard later he was caught diddling little kids. Always wondered if the bullying caused that, or if he was bullied because everybody already knew there was something wrong with him. And, as they say, he might have been sexually abused at home, since most pedophiles were.

We had another kid that was rejected by everybody. Again I tried being friendly, again it just didn't work. Read years later that he got kicked out of prison guard training because he couldn't get along with the other trainees. I shuddered to think if this guy had really become a guard. Of course some of the blood thirstier posters here might have thought that would have been just great.

   

If I could rep you, I would.

If it is just one person that "teases" you, you might be able to get a grip on it, punch their lights out or have a bigger mouth than they have. MIGHT.

But bullying is so much more than "teasing". And the line is fine...

   

Why do I get the feeling andy was describing himself in high school!

   

Poor kid.

I have a two year old niece. I'm going to make sure my sister has a talk with her about internet safety. If she doesn't do it, I will.

   

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