wait, so she said all of these things on Facebook and no one did anything?  I wouldn't blame students.  I may blame the family for not noticing.  But, it's not like she couldn't keep it from them too.  So...all in all - Perhaps students should be made aware that its OK to tell someone (Teacher, Guidance Counselor, their friends Parent's) that they're seeing.reading/hearing these things.  Most kids will think it's "lame" to tell anyone.  BUT, something needs to be taught.  This is no different than "see something, say something" really.   

. Although teaching your kids violence to stop a bully is to some people  an "easy" way to dismantle a bullying problem, it doesn't help. It causes more problems.  What does help is teaching your kid positive self esteem. Hang out with your child. The best thing my parents ever did was taking me to martial art classes. Yes I could beat them up and I might have been able to break an arm, but you learn not to do it. You have confidence in yourself to be a better person. Not every one can take courses like that. However any positive outlet for a kid will bring them to better emotional support. Take them out of the teen or tween world and let them see other things. Museums, music classes, sports not in school outside of school, but of things not standard like baseball or basketball ( and if they do like it, then take them) i'm thinking trapeze school. Something that will let the kid have fun. Hell if your kid is into RPG's take him to a LARP game and have at it. Make the costumes. Play Demon Souls with your kids. Get involved, sometimes they don't want you to be around but if you are willing to ask what's up with a kid and not in the Full House bullshit kind of way they will sometimes tell you what's going on.

I agree with a good deal of what you've said, but sometimes self esteem is expressed by not putting up with someone else's bs, and stopping it... and if reason doesn't get the job done, you are left with force. as for the notion that all you have to do is ignore it, not always the case, as that telegraphs weakness in some instances, calling in the other predators. I'm reminded of when I was at a new high school and two kids would not let up no matter what, it took me going apeshit on them to get them to stop, which also earned me the respect of other classmates ( perhaps highschool is a bit like prison?). I'm not suggesting that I would encourage future child to punch someone in the nuts at the first sign of disrespect, but if it came down to it, I would suggest it as what would need to happen.

Criminalize bullying? No way. When I have kids, I'm going to teach them the only way to deal with a bully: via force. Knee in the balls or vag, fist in the nose. Repeat as needed. Seriously, they don't respond to anything else, and if the victim is sensitive (and thus more likely to be wounded by the bullies words) it's even more important they excercise some force. Which is worse, daily humiliation or a few days suspension?. Plus, a punch in the nose takes away from them the high they get feeling that they are somehow lording over your powerlessness. When I was in 3rd grade, a 6th grader started messing with me for no obvious reason. One day I had enough and snaped, punching him in the face. I didn't really hurt him due to our relative sizes, but it certainly shocked the hell out of him, and guess what? He stopped F-ing with me. It's too bad this girl took her life. She was bullied for wearing pumps and skirts? Because she had fashion sense? Judging just her looks, She was young, but it doesn't take a genius to see that she was growing into a beautiful young woman, and by the time she was in college or out in the world she'd be doing pretty well for herself just based on looks. Shit girl, you should have either transfered schools or bitch slapped some bullies and then waited a few years. Bullying, in extreme cases, seems to either lead to suicides or Columbines.

I hope you have boys, because that aggro tactic doesn't work with girls.  If anything, it makes it worse because then she'll probably be bullied as some "dyke cunt."  Girl bullying is much more psychological and probably cuts much deeper than boys who just physically abuse each other.

Good point, with the girls, it's more complicated, so I hope I just have boys (also, no $ spent on a bs fantasy wedding fantasy)!

Yeah at least with boys it's mostly physical, and there's endings and breaks to it between school days.  I don't think I've ever seen worse psychological bullying than from a group of girls in a school or a clique of girls in a work place towards another girl on the outs.

If your kids punch or hit someone, they are committing a possibly criminal offense, so even if you decide your kids will "stand up for themselves", the bully's parent could have YOUR kid charged at that point, assuming that is what they wanted to do.

if they attempt that, they will regret doing so lol. Anyways, so what? I should instruct this future child to just take bullying and humiliation because of a hypothetical lawsuit? Some kind of world that would be. Anyways, if it came to that, I'm sure I could find some scuzzbag lawyer to sue the parents and child for some sort of pain and suffering.

rip, kid.

What is with these kids committing suicide because they are being bullied?  I don't understand this trend. Wasn't almost everyone bullied in school? It's just a part of growing up. Are kids today really that soft?

Bullying is often traumatic (in the clinically defined sense) and leads to psychopathology. If kids are 'softer' today, we should be praising them for it, not asking them to blunt their emotions and become aggressive as some others have suggested.

No one's suggesting they become aggressive.  Kids today are often extremely spoiled by their parents and unprepared for the tough realities of life.  If they can't deal with a little bullying in school, how are they going to deal with life as an adult?  There's nothing "clinically" "traumatic" about bullying until some shrink sees it as a money-maker.  Kids today are spoiled and over-medicated.  They need to toughen up.

Stats say 70% of kids are bullied.  It's a good thing most of them know better than to kill themselves because some other kid is being a douche.

What stats are you looking at? The largest study (I know of) appeared in JAMA and found 16%. Other estimates range from 15-20%. I wouldn't be surprised if the number varies wildly by age group (and by how researchers operationalize bullying), but I've not seen an empirical source that produced a number as high as 70%.

I can't remember where I saw it, but 70% rings truer to me (especially if you take into account the newer definitions of bullying, which include but are not limited to name calling and social network disses).

Here's where you may have seen that figure:

http://www.usnews.com/educatio...

Also wiki stats, for whatever that's worth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Ms. Chung, the name of the street is Hylan Boulevard, not Hyland. I used to live on Staten Island, and I know exactly where that cross street is.