Teen Suicide Sheds Light On New Era Of Bullying

[...] — Prompted by the suicide of a 15-year-old South Hadley girl, the Massachusetts Senate debates a bill Thursday designed to clamp down on school bullying across [...]

What a tragic story… my condolences to Rene Lapore’s family and friends.

Short of pulling online applications entirely, developers can already limit bullying by performing advanced semantic analysis of network traffic in real-time (see NarusInsight, for instance, the most recent private-sector iteration of the FBI’s Carnivore program). Ubiquitous social network providers really need to be called to task about why they’re not implementing available semantic content filters.

I hope that we’ll eventually see a successfully prosecuted lawsuit involving the developers of a social application (though current precedents are not encouraging – “guns don’t kill people,” etc).

As always, it’s only when “real” money becomes part of the equation or, in this case, the “development cost”, that effective changes are made.

I’m heartbroken to see that Phoebe Prince was bullied to the point where she took her life. She was new in school, so that must have made things especially hard for her. She was also beautiful and I think a lot of bullying is prompted by jealousy and kids staking out their turf. Girls can be wretched to each other. When they gang up against another girl, twist her words, mock her every move, it can feel unbearable, like there is nowhere to hide or be safe.

Our kids need more help. Every school should have a system in place that works. Group therapy or some kind of intervention needs to be considered. There should be a well-liked teacher with the right skills and strength of personality who is an advocate for the bullied. Some bullies might even want to be stopped.

Please, kids who are being bullied, understand that things will get better. You can count on it. I know personally how painful it is, but school is such a short time in your life–even though it seems like forever. Many people who were bullied as children and teenagers go on to do great things and lead satisfying lives. They have interests and hobbies and jobs or careers. They find partners who love them. They have children. They have their own households and pets. They have autonomy and choose their friends. What you are experiencing now will soon stop. You have so much to offer. The bullies are not special, they are mean or bored or hate themselves or feel so boxed in by school and adolescence that they lash out at others. They bully those who are different from the herd or who are exceptional in some way. You have attributes they secretly admire. I was bullied because I had red hair and was “too feminine.” My husband finds it absurd that anyone could think that those things were a problem! He was bullied because he was slow to mature, until at fifteen his voice changed and in the next year and a half he shot up to 6′3″. He is quiet, artistic and interested in science. When I met him I thought he was the handsomest and smartest man I had ever met.

You will get past this. I did, my husband did, and we have a good life. Our daughter was also bullied verbally and physically during middle school. The school was hopeless about addressing it. She is highly creative and also learned differently. She is a professional now who travels the world with work and the bullies from middle school are now contacting her and trying to be her friends. She chooses to ignore them. She has found some good friends who she enjoys and trusts. One thing that happened as a result of her being bullied–she has no use for unkind people and will not put up with any nonsense. I don’t mean to imply that life beyond school is perfect and without problems for anyone–just that you will have more choices and the bullies frequently make the wrong ones.

Just get through school, do not be afraid to talk to a sympathetic adult and tell them you need assistance in dealing with a situation. You are not alone in this. It goes on in schools everywhere. It is temporary, but at your age I know that is hard to believe. Just hang on. The roller coaster always slows down and stops and then you step out of the “box” and walk on your way. Keep some goals in mind, finish school, read some good books, and enjoy whatever music you like but don’t go too dark with it. Keep a journal or work on whatever interests you. Another thing, many kids who are bullied find themselves more comfortable with adults. If you find yourself sitting around with your parents and their friends on a Saturday night and discover you are actually having fun, just go with it. When you are an adult you will have friends of all ages.

I know it is hard to handle the anger and sometimes it is so hard to get up and go to school in the morning. But you will be free of this eventually. My experience is that bullying is rare in college or trade school. By then, most bullies have learned or discovered the hard way that bullies are jerks. Be your own person and you’ll be clear of this before you know it!

Dear WBUR,
Over the past five years, I have researched, designed and implemented bully-prevention programs for elementary schools in Massachusetts. Although research indicates that bully-prevention programs build resilience, improve self-esteem and reduce violence and bullying in our schools,they must be implemented on a consistent basis(twice a week, 20 minutes each day)and include administrators, teachers, students and parents in the lessons. Since the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001″ however, many schools focus their attention on academic teaching and have fewer resources and less time to focus on anti-bullying lessons. Therefore, the responsibility to bully-proof children is solely on the parents. Research indicates that parent involvement in their child’s social and emotional development is a strong determinant in their child’s sense of self. Furthermore, consistent, open dialogue between parents and their children on specific social interests and concerns help improve communications and help children with resilience issues and self-esteem. If parents begin to teach their own children about the many forms of bullying and help them practice bully-proof techniques during their elementary school years,then their children will become more resilient, improve their self-esteem and be better prepared to deal with bullying during their Middle School and High School years.

I am sitting at my table weeping for this society.We have to problem solve this horrible culture of bully behavior on every level. We have to really take a look at this repulsive act of trying to harm this beautiful child even after she had hung her self. I am very disturbed.

this is kind of rediculous. This article makes it seem like Hingham is just as bad as these other town like South Hadley. In reality, Hingham has many programs to prevent bullying and suicide such as ADL, peer facilitators, and Suicide Prevention. These programs are really working. Sure, I dont know what other schools where suicicides have occured have to offer in terms of bullying prevention, but Hingham is doing a good job in preventing it. The author of this article left out that Rene learned from her bullying incident and now has a much more positive outlook on life. She is part of ADL and has many friends. This article seems to target Hingham, when, in reality, there is no reason to target Hingham because they are doing a great job to help their students.

I been stocked by two female bullies in 7th grade who didn’t like me since 2nd grade I had my mom to help prevent the problem gettin bigger but it mad it worst when the school was involved and spoke to them. One random day in school they blocked me on the second flr stairway and attacked. I fought back and lucky someone jumped in to help me… I’ve been fighting ever since 13 fights, 2 arrest. I was always perpared to portect myself cause the bulling didn’t stop. Suiced thoughts were always on my mind or gettin those people. I learned on my own when I read how many teens kill other teens or themselves and it made me think bout why is this happen in. Youth make fun of others to look cool mostly. I feel media and child advertizing which has no restriction in the usa that follow us since birth has minipulated what we want, think we need, feelings, how we look, what we should be. Influence how we treat each other in school. Religon too. Not everyone needs to have faith cause I’m not a great follower in the bible or whatever but it has good rules when it comes to behaving and treating one another wit love in my opinion. I’m just want peopleb to be more aware about this stuff..I graduated from high school last year and a student I went to school who had major pimple problem youth would make fun of him alllllllllllll the time. He started making bombs in his house. No one knew until his friend decided to tell his parents then the cops because he was going to blow up the school where I have to sisters attending…. that would have been on the news but its sweep under the rug…the cops arrested him in school luckly wit no bombs on him…. just think it could’ve been someone u know….

School bullying has to stop. No kid should be allowed on FB or on myspace. Teachers should be doing something about the bullying when they see it being done and i bet they didnt like being bullied when they were in school. I am 23 now ive been out of school for 5 yrs. Ive been bullied my whole life i never had a myspace til i was of age. My teachers never did anything about it and they saw it being done, I just had a baby girl and reading about this on the internet i wont let this happen to her i will stand up for her and go to the school and not let her have a FB or a myspace.

People don’t understand, there will always be bullying, and there is nothing you can do to completely prevent it. That’s just the way it is, some kids are rotten.

There should be an age restriction of facebook.

I recommend people watch the recent Frontline on digital culture. It talks about how ubiquitous, even mandatory, gadgets are in the classroom with some teachers defending their use of these tools. They defend this decision as a means of preparing young people for the future. It seems like we, as taxpayers, are giving a lot of business to software/hardware companies at the expense of a deep discussion among students, face to face.

You can simply remove the honesty box as an application. You can also block certain users on pretty much every social network site. However, I’ve also heard of a website that allows people to publicly post things about you, more or less like graffiti, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The web is a haven for anonymous flaming. People say things they would never say in person and don’t think about the consequences. Just look at any of the outrageous comments on youtube. No matter what the video is, there’s someone who’ll often post “fag” or something ridiculous like that. I’m not sure restricting web use is the answer. In a perfect world we could have automatic monitors set up (not too hard to do actually but takes funding and organization) so that adults can monitor this activity. But ultimately it’s about educating kids not to send such junk and also not to take it so seriously when they receive it. It’s interesting though, it’s like you have no reprieve anymore. It used to be you go home and then you have a break from the torment. But with the web and these kids dogging you on it, there’s no rest. I think maybe educating kids on not using apps like honesty box, teaching them how to use the privacy settings on facebook to block harmful speech, and you could write to the app creators.

When it comes to bullying among young kids and teens, this is not a new problem. Nor is this beautiful young girl the first to die so tragically as a result of it. We still haven’t gotten a hold on the old fashioned harassment – that which happens in the hallways, the bathrooms, on the bus, and sometimes even in the classroom, right in front of the teacher!

We, as parents, need to teach our children, from the very start, that each person in valuable and vulnerable. They need to understand that people do the things they do for reasons we don’t know about. They need to be taught to empathize, shown by example how hurtful it is to be bullied. The very young child’s behavior must be monitored and directed in an age appropriate way. It’s not terribly challenging to listen to a 4 year old recount the story of somebody falling off the swing and then express sorrow for the child’s injuries and embarrassment. It’s also not wrong to tell a visiting friend who is using aggressive language that such things are not okay in your home.

Kids understand more than we think – sometimes a simple explanation for an aberrant behavior, “maybe Maia does that because she wishes she had new boots like yours” or “I think it might be hard for Jacob since his Daddy moved away,” is enough to inspire your kids to think before they tease.

It’s up to the parents primarily but once kids are spending half their days at school the teachers, administrators, assistants, custodians, and anybody else who witnesses bad behavior has a responsibility to intervene, in an age appropriate way. Sensitivity training should be required for teachers the way sexual harassment training is required in the workplace. Then it must be dealt with as if every ugly word thrown at another child was a fist. Kids are suspended for hitting with fists – they should be suspended for hitting with words as well.

wbur interview