Bullying & Videos

All eyes are tuned into the number of bullying cases that are being reported by elementary and high school children throughout Boston. The telephone number to to call to report any incidents of bullying is 617-534-5050. (I wonder if there's a similar telephone number for Worcester?)

When the news of Phoebe Prince's suicide hit the news in January 2010, the details regarding her being verbally harassed and threatened by her school-mates caused the 15-year-old to hang herself.

In this day and age with the power of the Internet, it's disheartening to hear and read the news of the number of children that are bullied and made to feel like "outsiders".

I have to put this out there, while growing up there were kids that were "picked on" but it was never done to the point or level of what is being done today. I can recall on more than one occasion, a classmate being the aggressor and them being called out and told to "knock it off" because they, too, had faults and no one is perfect.

Fast forward to 2010, and we have kids who are purposefully fighting with each other and videotaping the fights and posting them on websites such as YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo and 12seconds, to name a few.

For example, take the case in Worcester where two were arrested for beating another kid and the beatings were videotaped and thus two assailants were arrested.

If you bypass the idiotic comments that some have decided to post, it's cases such as these that cause our court system to get backlogged and wastes money.

The "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality is a thing of the past, but it does take human beings to remember to be human and encourage children to respect themselves and, ultimately, respect others.

Praying!