9 Teenagers Are Charged After Classmate’s Suicide

[CZBZ]

From the NewYorkTimes:

9 Teenagers Are Charged After Classmate’s Suicide

By ERIK ECKHOLM and KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: March 29, 2010

"...The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January..."

[Flower]

CZ,
Before reading this my question was:  Where are the teachers and support staff to intervene on behalf of the student being bullied?

In the article: "It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,” Ms. Scheibel said, but did not violate any laws."

Huh, uh! Did not violate any laws?  What about human compassion for another person being harrasssed?  I guess moral codes don't count nowadays.
I am soooo glad I don't have kids in school anymore. It doesn't seem like the bullying situation has gotten any better.

My sympathies are with that poor girl and her family. They didn't deserve it---no one does.

Hugs, Flower

[CZBZ]

Right, Flower...some people have the stupid idea that a little bit of bullying will make a kid 'tough'. That sticks and stones thicken your skin for growing up. That bullying is, in other words, NORMAL.

My thought is that bullying the old-fashioned way with cliques, eye-rolling, or spit-balls was bad, but it wasn't life-threatening. What makes bullying so bad these days is Texting. Using the Myspace to torture someone anonymously. Anonymity really brings out your inner psychopath...plus, I can say this from experience: when bullying is put into WORDS, those words never leave your mind. At least when someone's yelling at you or teasing you, you kinda forget exactly what they said and might be able to decieve yourself into thinking it wasn't That Bad.

But with words you can read over and over, burning like branding irons in your brain? That's very hard to get over. Very. I'd never thought about this until writing to you...it's an idea that merits further exploration.


Hugs,
CZ

[Flower]

But with words you can read over and over, burning like branding irons in your brain?

I never thought of it like that. Plus, there is the extra dynamics of being a sensitive teenager, along with the teasing going on at school.
There should have been adult intervention.

Flower