Facebook Bully Gets Choked

Facebook remains in the news this week, only this time the feature story wasn’t the IPO debacle. Instead while at a mall a Florida mother, Debbie Piscitella, was arrested after choking a fourteen-year-old boy who had allegedly been terrorizing her daughter on Facebook.

Born This Way Foundation

When someone uses their celebrity to help address one of my pet issues, it makes me feel good. That they use their pull and tap into their fanbase to raise awareness about the issue, such as bullying, it gives me hope that something positive will come out of it.

The Victim’s Fault?

Bullying is a hot topic these days. As a nation, we’re grappling with how best to stop bullying and yet more cases are jumping into the public eye. Recently the case of Jamey Rodemeyer has been making headlines, because bullying drove this fourteen-year-old boy to take his own life.

Cecil FTW

One of my goals is to share real world experiences along with thoughts and articles about the issues which crop up in my writing. And to do that, my plan was to contact people and ask them to share some of their experiences…

A Year Detention – Seriously?

The Children’s Court president judge said the only option for the offences committed was a year of detention. I’m a little underwhelmed by the decision, if in fact detention is the same thing in Australia as it is here. Here’s the thing… a 16-year-old boy decided to “impersonate” a bully…

When 0.27 Percent Isn’t That Small

Wow! I knew that bullying was prevalent in the United States, and I had my suspicions that it was not isolated to the United States, but I found an article today which caused my eyebrows to rise.

Bullying: A Real World Experience

Bullying has been around for as long as I can remember… and long before that. It has seemingly been on the rise in recent years, but it may be that our tolerance for bullies is waning, or we are better defining what bullying is. So, what is bullying? Dan Olweus gives us a commonly accepted definition for bullying in his book, Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do:

A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.

Social Exclusion

If social exclusion isn’t blatant bullying, it is its first cousin. The reason I say that it may not be bullying is that no one has to hang out with you. You don’t have to be a member of a particular group… but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It does. But, as Izzy Kalman of Bullies 2 Buddies points out, there are different ways to deal with the situation…and some are definitely more effective than others.

It Gets Better — Authors and Illustrators Unite

One common theme that runs through the stories I write is that of bullying. Every story idea comes equipped with a bully and I think the reason is that bullying happens every day. I’ve never understood the mentality of a bully…why do they see the need to tear down others?