Bullied Irish Teen Commits Suicide

Lara Burns, a 12 year-old teen from Kilcock, Ireland was found dead Saturday evening. As it appears she committed suicide after being a victim of cyber bullying. 

Lara was a first year student at Maynooth Post Primary School; in a statement the victim’s school described her death as a terrible tragedy.

“We are deeply saddened by these events. Our sympathy and thoughts are with Lara's family and friends.”

Facebook tribute pages have been set up already and people are showing their support via comments. One of them states, “It’s sick to see what bullying makes people do. Yesterday we lost a innocent girl because of it. We have to take action. R.I.P.”

Lara is the third suicide in Ireland in three months as a result of cyber bullying, the other's being 15 year-old Ciara Pugsley in September and 13 year-old Erin Gallagher in October.




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Alberta Legislation: Students Punished For Failure To Report Bullying?

Take a look at this and see if you agree. Alberta, Canada recently passed new legislation on bullying which, many are saying, is placing too much responsibility on the shoulders of children and not enough on parents and educators. 

The new legislation requires students to report bullies or else face possible suspension! It states that students should "refrain from, report and not tolerate bullying or bullying behaviors directed toward others in the school," regardless of whether the bullying happens in school, during school hours or through social media and the internet.

"In effect, students would have to police the Internet on behalf of the school or face the threat of suspension, " states the report written by IMFC researcher Peter Jon Mitchell. "This is not an effective way to engage students regarding cyberbullying."

It's very important for parents to have a role in their children's life online. It can't be expect for young kids to "police the internet" on their own, and chances are if bullies know parents aren't watching, then they're going to continue threatening others just as much.



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Students Hiding Talent To Avoid Being Bullied

Now this is disturbing.. Apparently kids who are naturally gifted are playing down their talents and smarts for fear of being a target to bullying. More than 90% of the 1,000 11-16 year-olds recently surveyed said they had been bullied or seen someone bullied for being too intelligent or talented. So now kids are actually hiding their talents and skills so avoid being targeted.

'Almost half of children and young people (49.5%) have played down a talent for fear of being bullied, rising to 53% among girls. One in 10 (12%) said they had played down their ability in science and almost one in five girls (18.8%) and more than one in 10 boys (11.4%) are deliberately underachieving in maths – to evade bullying.'

The government has recently pledged funding to develop a new math course based on the assumption that current maths courses are inaccessible to kids who don't think math is necessary for their everyday life (hey, we've all been there). But what these studies are now showing is that there might be more to failing scores than just thinking math is irrelevant. 

'The best schools are those which have a positive culture and ethos, with expectations and rules of engagement spelt out for pupils. These schools respect individual differences, give time to developing empathy and take responsibility for preventing bullying. They use the curriculum to embed messages about bullying and behaviour and they record bullying incidents.'


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Taylor Swift "Mean" Video

This is a little older but still a great empowering song. Country singer Taylor Swift wrote a song about bullying after feeling bullied by members of the press. This is the song "Mean" from her "Speak Now" album. Another musician using their resources to spread a positive message!

Be Bold: Stop Bullying - Campaign Created By Facebook

Media giant Facebook had decided to start it's own anti-bullying campaign about a month after Canadian teen Amanda Todd took her life after feeling the pressures of cyberbullying. The campaign enlisted the help of Canadian celebrities to help promote their message and encourage people to take their pledge. There's even an interactive app that you can use to take the pledge, and it will keep track of how many people have in each territory, and will also provide parents and children with information to fight cyberbullying.

“Our goal is to raise awareness of the simple, yet powerful actions that parents, kids and educators can take to prevent bullying,” campaign organizers said in a statement. “We hope to inspire millions of bystanders to take action by speaking up when they see bullying and to grow a community committed to ending bullying.”

So check out the Be Bold: Stop Bullying national campaign and take the pledge!

Below is the Be Bold: Stop Bullying pledge:

Bullying makes every day hard. It makes people feel isolated, unimportant and afraid to go to school. I have the power to stop bullying by getting involved in a few specific ways. Here is my pledge:

I will speak up - I will take a stand when I see young people humiliating or hurting each other. I will talk about bullying with my friends and the adults in my life, so everyone knows I think it's wrong.

I will advocate - I will stick up for others who might be in need of my help, and not just my closest friends.

I will be a role model - I will not use my phone or computer to spread rumors or say hateful things, and I won't ignore it when others are cruel and intimidating.

Stopping bullying begins with me. Taking this pledge can change someone's life in a meaningful way. I will forward it to my friends and family to help grow a community committed to ending bullying. I will speak up.

Click Here for the original article, as well as a new video

Devin Hughes - A Comic Book To Fight Bullying

Devin Hughes is the light-skinned son of a black father and white mother. Growing up in a primarily black neighborhood, he was often bullied which just got worse when he was diagnosed with dyslexia and pulled from regular classes. But he has now taken his experiences and turned them into a positive that others can learn from as well. 

Hughes created a comic book called "Self Talk" dealing with his childhood and how he got through. And no it's not the spandex superhero type comic book. The heroes in this book are in the form of positive self-affirmations, or “self talk,” which he said can protect children from foes like bullies.

The cover of "Self Talk" by Devin Hughes, with children wearing "symbolic" shields.

On top of the comic book, there is also a 54-page curriculum with activities related to the book. In recent months he's been talking to several college and schools about the project. 

The comic begins with a young Hughes discovering his mother’s car on fire outside his home one night. Instead of dwelling on what had happened, Hughes’ father turned the incident into a lesson about keeping a positive attitude. “People fall,” his father says to him in one panel. “They get hurt. But you’ve got to get up. Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”

Hughes' aim with the comic book is to teach young kids how to protect and defend themselves from the emotional harm that often comes with bullying, instead of focusing the aim on the bully him/herself which is what most anti-bullying programs do.


“I had points where I was crying,” he said about writing the book. “When you go through a lot of trauma like I did, you kind of compartmentalize it. You bury it.”

Hughes said he found himself speaking to his father about things in his childhood that they had never discussed.

Along the way, he also found many remarkable lessons from his father, who used to introduce him to prostitutes and drug users as a way of teaching him the consequences of poor choices in life.

Hughes is still speaking at schools about his anti-bullying comic, and is planning another comic book to teach tolerance.





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Cyberbullying And Meghan Meier

We all know the horrors of cyber bullying and the effects it can have on people, though it's mostly geared towards teens. The most comprehensive nationwide study of bullying ever conducted – involving more than 15,000 students in grades 6 through 10 – found that over 24% of the students had been bullied during the school year. Additionally, 8% of those students endured bullying on a weekly basis. According to a recent study, 88% of teens on social media have observed cruel, hateful or derogatory messages while 15% have themselves been the target of online cruelty. 

Meghan Meier was planning her 14th birthday while dealing with the ever day problems of being a teenager - self-esteem, friendships, appearance, and boys. Meghan, like most teens, used social media sites to keep in touch with friends and make new ones. She was excited when one day a 'cute' boy named Josh Evans friended her. They flirted online for about 6 weeks before Josh turned for the worst. He told Meghan he no longer wanted to be friends, called her fat, a slut, and told her "You are a bad person and everybody hates you. ... The world would be a better place without you." 

While Meghan's parents kept a close watch on everything she did online, and had permitted her to accept the friend requests, but when Josh's messages turned crude, mother Tina had made her sign off. Twenty minutes later when Tina Meier entered her daughter's room, she encountered tragedy beyond her worst fears. Megan had hung herself in the closet.
he jarring fact about Josh Evans – the "cute" teenager who first wooed Megan, and then wounded her – is that he actually never existed. After Megan had a falling-out with a neighborhood girl down the street, this teen neighbor's mother (with the aid of her daughter and a family employee) literally created the fictitious profile of Josh Evans, complete with false pictures.

The deceptive mother connived to gain Megan's confidence in an effort to discover if Megan had said anything negative about her own daughter, but also to cause her mental duress. Then the deceiver covertly gave the profile password to her daughter's friends and encouraged them to send malicious messages to Megan. These proved to be among the final messages she received.

Meghan hung herself back in October of 2006. But bullying is still a very real problem and children are still committing suicide based on cyberbullying, among other forms of bullying. 

In 2011, 95% of all American teens used the Internet and 80% of those teens maintained a presence on social media.5 Increasingly, our lives and friendships seemingly develop as much electronically on the Web as in person. 

What can you do to help your child avoid the pitfalls of social media?

• Purposefully connect with your child's online community.
• Determine whether your child's age and maturity merit involvement in social media.
• Develop guidelines and set limits with your child concerning the use of blogging and social media, including subject matter, tone and time devoted to a Web presence.
• Join and be active in monitoring your child's connections and communication techniques on Facebook, Twitter, message boards, blogs or other social media.
• Review the Terms of Use and Community Standards of social media platforms to ensure compliance and to follow designated procedures for reporting violations. 





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Chy Johnson And Her Boys

Chy Johnson is a sophomore from Queen Creek, Arizona. She was born with a brain disorder so that she only functions at a third grade level. However she was getting bullied in school.

Other students at her school were calling her stupid, throwing trash at her, and even pushing her down. "She'd come home every night at the start of the school year crying and upset," says her mom, Liz Johnson. "That permanent smile she had, that gleam in her eye, that was all gone."

After trying to reach out to school administration and getting nowhere, Liz decided to try a new approach - senior Carson Jones, the starting quarterback of the undefeated football team.

Carson had once escorted Chy to the Special Olympics. Liz had simply asked him to keep an eye out, and see if he could get any names on the people who were bullying Chy, but he did one better. He started asking her to eat at the cool kids' lunch table with him and his teammates. "I just thought that if they saw her with us every day, maybe they'd start treating her better," Carson says. "Telling on kids would've just caused more problems."

And it just got better from there.Starting running back Tucker Workman made sure somebody was walking between classes with Chy. In classes, cornerback Colton Moore made sure she sat in the row right behind the team.

"I was parking my car yesterday, and I saw a couple of the guys talking to her and being nice," says offensive lineman Bryce Oakes. "I think it's making a difference around here."

The football team didn't even tell anyone about their plan, just went ahead and did it. All of a sudden, Chy started coming home as her bubbly self again. When her mom asked why she was so happy, she said, "I'm eating lunch with my boys!"

But what about next year, when Carson probably will be on his Mormon mission and all of Chy's boys will have graduated?

Not to worry. Carson has a little brother on the team, Curtis, who's in Chy's class.

"Mom," he announced at the dinner table the other night, "I got this."

Chy Johnson & Carson Jones

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Pink Shirt Day Founder Spreads Anti-Bullying Message

Travis Price, Nova Scotia, was a victim of bullying throughout most of his childhood. It followed him from elementary school through middle school and even in to high school. In Grade 7, two girls from his school invited him to hang out with them after class. Later, Price was surprised to see a boy along with them, but considered it an opportunity to make a new friend. As the other three students began talking to each other, Price grew uncomfortable. He started to walk away when the boy grabbed him and flung Price over his shoulder. The two girls then kicked him repeatedly in the ribs. Price walked home and collapsed on his bedroom floor. He sustained serious injuries including a broken ankle and broken ribs.

He was out of school for four months, and upon returning was told by a girl in one of his classes, "We liked it better when you were in the hospital.”

Though he tried to take his own life, his grandfather convinced him he was here for a bigger purpose. 

When Price was 16, one of his best friend Falon Urquhart, 14, took her own life.
"We never stood up for her, I lost my friend because of it,” said Price.

In Price's freshman year of high school, he started Pink Shirt Day in support of a boy who was bullied for wearing pink to school. Today Pink Shirt Day has become an international movement involving 6.4 million students in thousands of schools. 

Pink Shirt Day found Travis Price

Price, now 22, travels to school in Canada sharing his ant-bullying message. At Monday’s presentation, Price told students to take action when they witness bullying.

“Don’t be a bystander” is the message Price is delivering to schools across Canada.

Pink Shirt Day is going to be February 27, 2013!
http://www.pinkshirtday.ca/about/


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Two Boys Bullied And Beaten Unconscious

Benjamin Rush Middle School in Rushville Indiana had two horrific cases of bullying recently. The first one was caught on tape via a camera at the school. A 15-year-old came up behind 13-year-old Austin McDaniel and beat him repeatedly. Austin says  says his eyes were closed and he doesn't remember what happened because he was beaten unconscious. Five of his teeth were knocked loose and he was left with a bruised and bloody lip.

Austin says many of his friends did nothing, just watched punch after punch: "I was just walking to my locker and he just came up behind me and beat me up."

A few days later, Austin's friend Logan Thomson was also attacked.  Logan's mother, Misty, explains, "He was knocked completely unconscious. The boy came at a dead run, jumped into the air, drew back and hit him with everything he had -- knocked him off his feet and his head hit the floor."

Logan stated that another student had put a "hit" on him for $300 to beat him up again. 

The two boys involved have been removed from the school, but the district will not say for how long. The superintendent issued this statement: "Rush County Schools provide a safe environment for our students and staff. We have had two isolated incidents which have been dealt with to the fullest extent of our policies and law."

There are now anit-bullying billboards up near the school. The families are just hoping to "raise awareness of bullying so what happened at Benjamin Rush Middle School doesn't happen to your child."

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Check Out My New Website!

Just a side note, my new website is up and running! It has all my great Rock Report tips, as well as my Stop Drunk Driving Now and Right Now Anti-Bullying information as well!

Check it out at http://ronbellanti.com/

Turning Bullying Into A Positive - Story of Helen Carroll

This is a great story I recommend for everyone to read through. It's the story of a woman who was badly bullied throughout school, both physically and verbally, and overcame it. Helen Carroll dealt with bullies throughout her life - in school, at home, and in the workplace - and actually thanks her bullies for what they've done.


"Incredible though it might sound, I believe it did me good. It was, quite possibly, one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I quickly worked out that unless they could provide me with a round-the-clock armed guard, neither my teachers nor my parents would be able to protect me from bullies. So I stopped reporting their crimes and got to work on strategies for handling them myself."

She fought the bullies by not actually fighting. She learned incredible self control and wouldn't cry in front of them, wouldn't get angry, and never let anything they said get to her. She just picked herself back up and pretended that nothing happened and eventually they stopped bothering her. Without that feedback, the bullies basically got bored -  a lessons he later taught her son when he was having bullying problems in school as well.

Click Here to check it out the fully story, you won't be disappointed!