Suicides Question Anti-Bullying Programs
April 24, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Filed under Family, Parenting
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
WRONG message!
The website you reference as a means of helping to stop bullying does more harm than good. Tom Letson the “genius” behind the website HE and only HE makes the determination as to whether any report is real or false. How pray tell can he do that? He gets to play GOD with tormented kids and HE renders decision based on what ? His gut? And you better hope it is not his intelligence…read on.
You had a duty as a reporter to read ALL HIS disclaimers before dangerously promoting his helpess site.
Like this one: “Bullystoppers.com does not inform individual non-member schools of any posted reports of bullying. Non-member schools are required to review posted reports at their own discretion.”
In other words unless you are one of this Tom Letson guys client schools in a specific NJ location, there is NO way your random rant is ever going to be read by your school. How will some school outside that small select loction even know they have been mentioned?
Letson isn’t going to notify ANY schools. In fact, he further states ANY school can have ANY reports immediately removed- they just have to inform him.
WOW what a great service in trying to make it appear this guy can do anything to stop bullying.
He also makes it clear his site is NOT for reporting serious violence threats though your article makes it sound like that IS what it is for. That = dangerous and poor investigatory writing skills.
Finally, the whole anonymity reporting angle merely creates for kids seriously victimized and tormented by bullying a false sense of help and hope with their serious problem. How? Even in his local schools when rather “IF” a school administrator is made aware of an anonymous report of bullying minus REAL names and most of all REAL names of witnesses to corroborate a bullying incident ANY administrator on their already tight schedules is going to IGNORE anonymous reports. Statistics, research and countless documented stories all demonstrate inarguably that you can’t get school officials to intervene or even acknowledge bullying when they DO know of it. Yet somehow we are suppose to believe this Letson guy through his “hole filled disclaimers” is going to heroically get school officials he doesn’t even know to “jump up” and address his anonymous, gut checked reports?” It is laughable but more so the thought is dangerous to any tormented child believing THIS guys and HIS site are finally the answers to their daily pain.
Ever consider the downside of what could happen to a poor kid when Letson and his phony website ALSO don’t help? No heroics just more hoplessness.
Finally, per every anti-bully policy, law etc…no school administrator can file an official report of bullying if it is based on anonymity. Meaning, if the incident can’t be verifiable as in names of those involved “including a wtiness” no report can be filed. Now you understand why NO school official is ever really going to do squat when it comes to anonymous reports of bullying.
Tom Letson of all people KNOWS THIS and should be shamed to offer such false hopes to kids in desprate need of his help. As the reporter who should have done much better homework before showcasing his website, you NOW know it!
Intentionally signed, anonymous which now gives you the OK to not respond and to ignore me as well. Which will only solidify my entire argument against anonymous bullying reporting.
Hello, Anonymous,
Your comments and opinions are appreciated and, respectfully, not ignored. Thank you for your insight into Letson.
I’ll share my experience with you. My son was afraid to go to school in the mornings and fighting back tears when he got home in the afternoons. You can’t imagine how this tore me up inside.
I’d read some very positive reviews online about a home-coaching system called The Total Bully Solution. For 2 weeks, my husband and I worked with our son doing the role-plays and practiced the self-defense techniques over and over.
1) The 20 minutes a night we spent together working on the drills really brought us closer together as a family
2) By applying the ‘psychological jiu jitsu’ he learned, Cody was able to put a stop to the bullying on his own.
Yes, most kids who get picked on in school eventually grow up and get over it. Then again, some go on rampages. Or kill themselves. In every case, people wonder what they could have done differently, if years of torment or tragedy could have been avoided. Living with regrets of that magnitude must be devastating.
If youre a parent and you even think your kid is being bullied, do something. Don’t waste time hoping that things will get better on their own – they wont.