Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper told of a second 11-year-old boy taking his life after bullying at his elementary school became too much for him to handle. Jaheem Herrera, of Georgia, had cried about not wanting to go to school, that he was called gay over and over to the point he just didn’t want to hear it again. Complaints to the school seemed to fall on deaf ears.
But on April 16, Jaheem appeared happy when he came home from school with a glowing report card. It may have been a glimmer of hope for his mother Masika Bermudez that her darling boy may have found peace with the situation. But later that evening, when her calls for him to come to dinner were not answered, she and Jaheem’s sister went up to his bedroom and found his body in a closet hanging by a belt.
This, just weeks after another 11-year-old boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, from Massachusetts, took his own life after relentless taunts by his peers.
What most surprised me is that DeKalb County, Georgia has what experts called an “exemplary” anti-bullying program in place that included an awareness program and a specially trained staff member to address the issue. Kids even were asked to sign a no-bullying pledge.
So what went wrong? And what can we, as parents, do to stop our child from bullying or being bullied, since we cannot rely simply on our schools?
Here’s yet another resource, a free Bully Reporting Site powered by www.BullyStoppers.com where parents and students can provide details of bullying situations. And, here is an example what the reports look like. The anonymous bully reporting is designed to help students who suffer from bullying, decrease behaviors that build over time and lead to violent outbursts, create a deterrent effect against bullying in a school or bus, and prevent embarrassing students who report problems.
Will it help? Who knows. The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center seems to think that such a system could have prevented many of the countless school shootings over the years. Regardless, a workable solution must be found before another child kills himself.
Photo,Flickr, sarah bara wears mascara
Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper told of a second 11-year-old boy taking his life after bullying at his elementary school became too much for him to handle. Jaheem Herrera, of Georgia, had cried about not wanting to go to school, that he was called gay over and over to the point he just didn’t want to hear it again. Complaints to the school seemed to fall on deaf ears.
This, just weeks after another 11-year-old boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, from Massachusetts, took his own life after relentless taunts by his peers.
What most surprised me is that DeKalb County, Georgia has what experts called an “exemplary” anti-bullying program in place that included an awareness program and a specially trained staff member to address the issue. Kids even were asked to sign a no-bullying pledge.
So what went wrong? And what can we, as parents, do to stop our child from bullying or being bullied, since we cannot rely simply on our schools?
Here’s yet another resource, a free Bully Reporting Site powered by www.BullyStoppers.com where parents and students can provide details of bullying situations. And, here is an example what the reports look like. The anonymous bully reporting is designed to help students who suffer from bullying, decrease behaviors that build over time and lead to violent outbursts, create a deterrent effect against bullying in a school or bus, and prevent embarrassing students who report problems.
Will it help? Who knows. The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center seems to think that such a system could have prevented many of the countless school shootings over the years. Regardless, a workable solution must be found before another child kills himself.
Photo,Flickr, sarah bara wears mascara