No Little Bullies Either

Since the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old in South Hadley, Mass., who committed suicide after being bullied by fellow students, many onlookers have meditated on whether the circumstances that led to her after-school hanging might have been avoided.

Could teachers have stepped in and stopped the bullying? Could parents have done more to curtail bad behavior? Or could preventive measures have been started years ago, in early childhood, long before bullies emerged and started heaping abuse on their peers?

Increasingly, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying and other kinds of violence can indeed be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age. Over the past decade, research in empathy — the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes — has suggested that it is key, if not the key, to all human social interaction and morality.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982190,00.html#ixzz0vCozlA4D

After learning of the death of a friend's freshman son in a small town high school in which harassment caused him to take his own life, and then hearing similar stories, I too am on a quest like my friend's to prevent bullying in schools. Reports show 1 out of 4 students are bullied. These students are mentally tortured to the point of losing self esteem, not being able to be successful at school and even ending their own lives. Can we help even if we don't know someone who is bullying or being bullied? The answer is yes. We can prevent it from ever happening through awareness and interventions. I wonder if our victim students could be more successful if they had the tools to deal with bullying, face to face or online, at an early age?