13-year-old Ryan Halligan spent most of the summer of 2003 online. It was a safe place for him. He was small for his age, and he had a learning disability. Regrettably, the kids from school found Ryan online and began tormenting him over instant messenger. After a summer of finding no respite from the teasing, Ryan had to return to school where the bullying escalated. One girl, who was particularly cruel to him, called him a loser, to which he responded, “Its girls like you who make me want to kill myself.” And then he did. On October 7, 2003, his sister found him dead in the bathroom of their home. After Ryan’s death, his father began reviewing his son’s chat logs on the family computer. What he found shocked him and exposed the catalyst for Ryan’s suicide.
The Halligans have since befriended one of Ryan’s former bullies, and together they’ve gone on to educate others about the dangers of cyber-bullying.
I believe, The first step is for parents to be aware of just how cyber bullying is working today Where we once thought we just had to protect children from adult predators using the Internet, we now need to protect kids from one another.
ReplyDeleteCyber bullying is most common around the middle school years, but is making its way into the younger set. Kids are living in the cyber space now, how ever the behavior is all about intentionally causing another pain (bullying), and parents must be aware that and try to find solution for their kids to be stop being bullying others and protect them from being bullied. The most important factor is to start talking we their children and communicate with them and try to be friend with them and don’t let them to be lost in cyber world and explain to them about the cyber bulling and how it can ruin people’s life .The two biggest mistakes adults make is not taking children's complaints seriously, and allowing bullying in the first place.
I do agree with Shiri, this is a warn to parents. They must be careful about their kids when they go through internet specially teen and kids.Parents and also school teachers must teach students how to use and the benefit of that and also aware them of harmfulness of strange people.
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