No More Dead Babies

Before reading this post, please refer to this story:
 Ashlynn Conner Suicide

This absolutely enrages me. Why is it that kids feel the need to pick each other apart to such extremes? Now, I'm not saying I'm completely innocent, I've made a few kids cry. However, I've never consistently targeted someone, set others on them, and led them to suicide. Can it really be called suicide in these cases? I feel like if you torment a person to the point that they feel the only escape is to kill themselves, then there should at least be a manslaughter charge.


RIP Ashlynn Conner
You left too soon. <3

In this case, I'm not sure if I'm more upset with the bullies, or the mother. When your kid comes to you ASKING to be home schooled, that's an immediate sign that something is wrong. Do something. Don't just assume that your reassurements are going to drown out a bully's taunts or physical blows. This little girl was 10 years old. 10. She never learned how to drive a car, she never had a first date or first kiss, she didn't even make it to middle school. All because of some mean spirited kids.
Seriously, where is the adult supervision here? Obviously, parents can't be in school with their kids monitering their every move and teachers can't watch every kid, but there needs to be a lot more involvment. And let me make it perfectly clear, that when I say involvment, I mean more than just those annual anti-bullying lessons. Let's be honest, it really doesn't do a lot. You can teach kids "the steps" all you want, that's not going to stop a bully who knows exactly what these "special" steps are.
When kids want to be mean, they're vicious. They don't care what they're words or actions do if they want to lash out. Trying to reason with them doesn't do much either. You can trust me on this. I tried to make friends with the bullies when I was younger. In fact, one of the biggest bullies to me was my best "friend". Once a bully decides they found a good target, they're NOT going to let up.
Parents need to take quite a significant amout of involvment in their children's lives, not necessarrily be "helicopter parents". They just need to make sure they know what's going on in their kids' social lives, and when a child comes to them about a bully, or something seems wrong, they need to ACT. Call attention to the situation and get the school involved. If the school does nothing, it's time to find a new school. Yes, this may seem like a hassle, but honestly? What's a little bit of temporary hassle in your life to possible save your child's life? However, this doesn't just go for the parents of the victims. The parents of bullies need to be informed and involved as well, because if not corrected at a young age, child bullies only grow into adult bullies.
Personally, I think there should be a certain level at which bullying becomes a felony. There's just no reason for there to be dead kids because of what some loud mouth said. This isn't going to just go away on its own. We need to be doing more than "anti-bullying week/month/whatever" once a year. It's time to really come down hard on bloodlusting bullies. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of hearing horror story after horror story. This needs to stop.