Good morning all. On this lovely Friday here in Maryland, I am going to bring up a not so lovely topic – that of Bullying. Bullying is a subject seemingly on everyone’s minds. From blogs to books, from newspapers to TV commentators and even the movies, we see the victims, we listen to their stories and we wonder what can be done to stop it. Some say bullying has always been around and that the child/person should just “buck up” and deal. While the first part is true, bullying has always been around, the second is sickeningly false.
More and more it seems that the one who is bullied now sees suicide as their only solution in ending their torment. Look at all the suicides we have heard of and think of all those children whose attempts we don’t know about. I would suspect they are legion. And what do we hear after learning of the death? Someone invariably says “If only I knew….” And then it comes out that someone did know and didn’t do anything. Or they didn’t know what to do. So much sadness and pain. Such an unnecessary loss.
National Prevention Week is coming up. It’s May 20 -26th. So I will be writing more on this topic later. But right now, the story Bully by Carter Wolf is available for a free download for Amazon’s Prime customers and for $2.99 for regular accounts. It is worth every penny. My review of Bully will be going up on Saturday but don’t wait until then. Get it or buy it now. You can find it here at Amazon.
And don’t forget to take the Prevention Pledge! Here are some sites on Bullying.
Child Bullying School Bullying Bullycide
The Trevor Project
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 