.... dont even have a title for this

I am feeling a little confused over something I recently…. Just read! I just read an article that talked about how bad bullying has gotten and who should be held accountable and to what degree. And here is where it gets me. They bring up Phoebe Prince. The Mass. 15 year old who went home and killed herself after being bullied at school, out of school and on-line. This is the part that has me confused, they start to talk about who should be blamed and what the punishment should be and IF it should be the same knowing that she was depressed, suffering with her parents divorce and had attempted suicide before. SERIOUSLY?

This is why I think that this bothers me. The points that this article brings up are great points and questions about how far can you take an act of bullying and what are the repercussions of those actions. But they want to say that if a 15 year old… 15 was depressed before and “unstable” then those involved might not be as “punished” as those who did the same crime to a “stable” 15 year old. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is like telling the entire school “bully the weak kids…. You wont face time. But pick on a stable kid and your getting put away!”

I may have stronger feelings for a few reasons on this. I had… have the mother that always told me “ignore them and they will go away” and I tried that. And in junior high/ middle school… I was bullied. And it was all over he said she said he’s my boyfriend gossip. What started out as me trying to figure something out for a girl who was my friend but more popular then I, turned into an endless name calling… being shoved into lockers, made fun or and tormented end of the school year for me. As much as I ignored it and as much as I looked into other ways to fix it…peer mediation and the guidance office, the bullying didn’t stop.

This girl was depressed and could handle it and didn’t think that calling mom or dad or someone and saying I am sad or going to do something would fix the problem. She looked at what she thought were her options and took her life. Now, we are looking into “rules” and laws for something that we “cant control” because its too late to save the lives of the children that have fallen to the same outcome.

When you are in school and you are bullied, telling mom and dad may fix the “problem” for a period of time, but the bullying will return when that child returns and it returns with vengeance. It isn’t “cool” to tell on people. Even if it is saving yourself.

I know MANY kids with face book pages and myspace pages and that is something that I understand. When I was in their shoes it was IM. I talked to whoever and everyone though IM and chat rooms. This is what is now this generations IM. But I think that just like anyone who is under 18, it should be monitored by the parents. And the parents need to do more then just take it away for a week when they see something that isn’t ok. I think that when it is being done at school, the zero tolerance policy needs to be put into affect and when it come to crimes outside of the school we need to teach kids to speak up.

Back in the day if you were harassed…. Which is what this all is, then someone paid for that when it happen. I understand that cyber bullying is hard to trace, watch and read… but a better system needs to be made and it should have NOTHING to do with a depressed or non-depressed child/adult.

It just blows my mind that someone can say “that child shouldn’t serve jail time because that child didn’t kill the other child” REALLY? That child didn’t save that child or make it any easier. And what is really a adequate punishment for someone that bullied a child/ classmate to death, because that’s what it is.

Phoebe was found by her younger sister, a mother and a father lost a daughter and someone lost a friend. If that was your child who would you want to see be punished for this. How would you want them punished? And then flip the tables, if your child was the child involved in the bullying, how would you handle it and how would you see a fit punishment.

I know that there are two sides and that’s why I asked that question. It is a hard one. And do I really want to see other children’s lives ruined because they thought that they were just being mean…. no. But I am also a firm believer that you are teaching them what they can and cant get away with later on in life. If you show a child that they will be forgiven for that… will that behavior come out again as an adult? Or in this case, the whole reason this bothered me in the first place, what are we telling the kids who hurt the sick/weak kids and don’t get in “big” trouble …. Yet hurting a “normal” kid is worse. Are we teaching them that one life is worth more then another?

This was just a really hard pill for me to swallow.

Sorry if I made you think.

But I was the kid that was out spoken and out going, sick on the inside, and because the girl who didn’t and still to this day doesn’t, stick up for myself. Those are the years you need to make sure their voices are being heard…. Making sure they know when to say enough is enough and know who they can turn to and knowing they are safe turning to that person.