Bullying: Bad For Your Health??

In June, The American Academy of Pediatrics officially named bullying a health risk.

Do you agree that bullying should be considered a health risk? Why or why not?

Join the national conversation. Click "Bullying: Bad For Your Health?" under Blog Archive to the right. Scroll down to Post a Comment and tell us what you really think.

Share Your Brilliant Ideas to Help Parents with Internet Safety

It's the "New Neighborhood Watch."

In opening remarks at a recent UN symposium on Cyber Hate, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "The Internet has brought tremendous good but there are a few dark alleys."

Many smart people are out there trying to help us navigate the "dark alleys," but no doubt the best advice comes from parents who live in real homes with real kids. It's time to share tips on what's working. Everything from where the computer is in the home, age appropriateness and social networking, cyberbullying, rules, enforcement of rules and what happens when, as in the "old" days when you didn't want your parents invading your room, your kids don't want you near their computer or their Facebook page.

Let's hear it all and about every age. Let's help each other face the fear of the new neighborhood of technology land so we can move on to other activities, like saving for college. Just kidding. I'd rather talk about the dangers of the Internet. Much less scary.

Click on "Share Your Brilliant Ideas..." under Archive to the right and a comment box will appear at the bottom. Give your best advice, vent a little, ask a question or preach. Whatever will shed a little light.

Lessons From Ryan's Story...Step In

At age 13, Ryan Halligan had enough of bullying and took his own life. His parents did everything they could to blunt the effects of bullying on their kind, sensitive son but he was surrounded. It happened in school and it happened online.

According to a recent study led by “Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, 42% of kids bullied on the Web are also harassed at school.” (Parents, June 2009).

Where do you start to tackle the issue; to make a difference? John Halligan, Ryan’s dad, started by going to middle and high schools himself and telling Ryan’s story. Eventually, he was in such demand that he had to make the choice of giving up a long career as an engineer at IBM and devoting all his time talking to as many kids, parents and administrators as possible.

His mission is personal. Bullying is personal. And bullying is a hurt that sometimes doesn’t get healed.

What John Halligan is doing is admirable. It must be painful every time he gets up to address an auditorium full of kids that remind him of his own. His presentation is addressed to bullies and victims, but maybe most importantly, to the bystander. The bystander is the key to stopping repeated mean behavior. Bullies bully because they can. John Halligan is empowering kids to step in. It’s the most powerful anti-bullying tool around.

A letter from a middle school student after one of John’s presentations:

“Dear Mr. Halligan,
I have learned from our assembly to not be a bystander. Our school gave us papers about your unfortunate situation. I instantly went on the internet to learn about Ryan’s story. After I finished reading me and my mom were in tears. My mom tells me things happen for a reason, although I don’t know what the reason is. I know that Ryan wouldn’t want you to stay sad. Your story has inspired me and hopefully it will inspire others. I hope you go around different places and teach others NOT TO BE A BULLY!!”

The Halligan family is brave and their bravery is making a difference. Now we should all step in.

Suspected "Bullicide"

What's Your Advice?

Check out this Dear Deidre column. A sixteen year-old boy writes in to ask the advice columnist for The Sun (a British paper), if he should stand up for his friend who is being badly bullied. Her advice, in a nutshell, is to not get too involved and encourage the boy to go to an adult authority.


What do you think?

GOOD NEWS...Things got better for Tricia...

Remember Tricia? (Click on May Archive to the right for the full story.) Well, I heard from her mom...and guess what? Things are better at school. Both Tricia and her mom are in disbelief. It seems that how she said...or something she said...on the bus on the way home from the school trip clicked with a few of the kids. Shock of all shocks, one of the girls recently invited Tricia to her birthday party and a boy invited her to his party in August.

As life goes, Tricia couldn't go to the girl's party because she was going to be out of town. (Don't you just hate that, parents?! Just when you think you have everything planned and organized, something important comes up for your kids...and you're conflicted!)

Guess what smart thing Tricia's mom did, though? The two of them went out and bought the girl a gift and dropped it off at her house. The girl actually hugged Tricia.

Thought you could use a good ending. And it's true.

The moral of this story is to listen to your child, don't let anger blind you and hang in there!

Feel free to write your story and we'll get the experts to weigh in. No kidding. Vent a little. (Just go to right hand column and click on "Good News...Things got better for Tricia" in the blog archive and a comment box will appear at the bottom. No need to use your real name if you don't want to.)

EXTRA! EXTRA! New York Times and Tangled Ball

It would be time well spent to read this article which touches on a range of pertinent questions about bullying, prevention and response. But the readers' comments on the NYT web health blog are mind blowing. It’s clear by the comments that the effects of bullying last a lifetime. Do they have to?

Click
Here to see it!

Appeared in New York Times Comments on June 9, 2009:

Fantastic article and extremely worthy of discussion. 
Bullying is a “tangled ball.” In some situations, it is easily untangled and in others, it’s knotted and extremely complicated. It will take health professionals, parents, schools, law enforcement, judicial system, and internet providers, to add their voices, their expertise, their interest and their money to come up with real answers.

In the meantime, children are suffering every day. We, as adults, can’t wait for change to help kids who are being affected as we speak. As parents, friends, mentors, teachers and mature adults, we can make a big difference in real time by paying attention, picking up on any signs of sadness and caring enough to ask the right questions, to learn to be patient enough to hear the answers and to help in whatever way possible.

Just knowing someone cares can lift some of the burden. The ” tangled ball” blog was started to dissect one bullying incident at a time by describing actual bullying challenges and get the experts to weigh in with effective advice. http://tangledball.blogspot.com/

We can all help to lift the burden one child, one home, one school at a time while we work on national initiatives.
— Susan Raisch (Tangled Ball)