Teen bullying: Tormented boy's short life ends in suicide

cubfannot wrote:

Anyone mention to the writer that parents of Laidlaw's 3rd grade girls were called in to address "mean girl" behavior years ago? These young ladies are now 11th or 12th graders and from what I've been told, haven't changed all that much. My friend's frosh daughter was slapped from behind walking down the hallway at LT in 2003 by a group of black males. She was too afraid to report it to the school. They used to call LT South, "LT Junior High" and LT North, "LT University," but events have escalated at the north campus. Posters Laura Sams and The St. Where You Live are right on target. When my kid was at McClure, I was nauseated at the sight of Dan Chick sucking up to well known monied parents. He was a lousy Spanish teacher, lame asst. vp and d.101 rewarded him with the job of principal. The parents of d.101 & d.204 need to empower themselves to demand an overhaul of how student issues are handled. D.204 School Bd members should be limited to two terms, if they measure up that long.
And to the parents who hover over their kids, expect special considerations and play politically reprehensible games with the public school system, send your future little mini-mes to private school. Any parent who fails to sit on their kids is responsible for what happens in those hallways. They don't grow out of it, they continue it at an older age.

suburbandad wrote:

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I cannot agree with you more. My kids attended Forest Hills and the admin. there looked the other way as well. When brought to their attention, they did nothing about students being bullied. The problems start when the kids are young and continue to escalate to the middle school if nothing is done. The same kids that were bullies in elementary school continue to junior high and high school. Even the superintendent of schools brushed off an incident that happened earlier this year and said that the district does not have a bullying problem- I could not disagree more! It is easy to look the other way and say that no problem exists- and that is exactly what they are doing. A fine example of what our tax dollars here in the land of plenty gets us!

Bill wrote:

Sometimes one has to take care of problems themselves, sine the schools keep a blind eye on problems. My wife's son had a severe problems with bullies at his school. The schools staff was blind, and offed no help at all. Being a owner of a very nice Harley, I put on all the bad looking clothing I could find, drove right up to the crowd of her sons tormentors, and picked out the ringleader. I told him in so many words that if he or his friends ever so much as looked at her son again, they would never be found again. My statement was, my gang knows where you live, what you drive, and where you hang out. We will get you, make no mistake punk, we will get you. I screamed these words about 2 inches from his face, and then spit on his face. The rest took off running. Her son was never bothered again. The next day, I flew 300 passengers to France. Yes, I was the Captain on that flight, and I am a former Marine. These punks are only tough in numbers. Don't count on anyone but yourself for help.
Semper Fi

Suburban Mom wrote:

Peace to the family and to all who are suffering bullying.
Take an afternoon to listen to the lyrics of some of the heavy metal and emo bands -- they are very depressing. If you want to help someone with their depression, start with the things that they are listening to, reading and watching; if you can change those things in a "normal" person, you can begin to change the mind.
The world will miss this wonderful child but it sounds like he made a powerful mark with many who loved and appreciated him.

Jamie wrote:

<quoted text> oh, shut up! you can listen to whatever music you want im just a teenager i listened to emo music and i got rideculed for it at school. i got kicked down the stairs, into lockers, whatever. but depession isnt cuz of what you read or whatever its how people treat you and if you think that by taking away the music and books people love will make a kid's life better, get your head out of your ****. teachers need to start paying attention to what happens around them because i got kicked down the stairs and they did nothing about it but when i got back at the cheerleaders for doing it by simply writing them a note, whoopee i get detention for a week. main story: RICH PARENTS YOUR KIDS TAKE AFTER YOU IF YOU WEAR NAME BRANDS AND TINK YOUR BETTER THEN EVERYONE YOUR KIDS WILL DO THE SAME. TEACHERS ARE IGNORANT. BULLYING SUCKS.

Jamie wrote:

<quoted text> oh, shut up! you can listen to whatever music you want im just a teenager i listened to emo music and i got rideculed for it at school. i got kicked down the stairs, into lockers, whatever. but depession isnt cuz of what you read or whatever its how people treat you and if you think that by taking away the music and books people love will make a kid's life better, get your head out of your ****. teachers need to start paying attention to what happens around them because i got kicked down the stairs and they did nothing about it but when i got back at the cheerleaders for doing it by simply writing them a note, whoopee i get detention for a week. main story: RICH PARENTS YOUR KIDS TAKE AFTER YOU IF YOU WEAR NAME BRANDS AND TINK YOUR BETTER THEN EVERYONE YOUR KIDS WILL DO THE SAME. TEACHERS ARE IGNORANT. BULLYING SUCKS.

Streety wrote:

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Jamie-- thanks for posting the truth of your experience. I would really like to hear from more people who are actually dealing with this and how they feel. Most adults have no idea what it's like to be a teenager these days, and want to believe that it's no different than when they were young, and they couldn't be more wrong. We need to hear from more of you.