Bullying and Suicide

I woke up (too) early this morning and caught something on the Today show that bothered me.  There is a high school in Ohio where 4 teens have committed suicide over the past two years.  All of the teens were bullied in some way or another.  The parents of 2 of the teens are now suing the school system for turning a blind eye to the bullying of their children.  I will address the bullying, but first let me address what I think is obviously the bigger issue:  suicide, particularly teen suicide.

The parents of these kids are in pain and they are looking for someone to blame and I can understand that.  In the course of their suing the school system, the school has claimed that they have an "aggressive program" geared toward tolerance and acceptance in order to prevent bullying.  That's probably the problem.  How about an aggressive program to explain to these kids that dead is dead?  You don't come back from that.  You don't bask in your classmates' belated adulation and acceptance of you.  You don't witness how bad they feel about how badly they treated you.  You're dead.  

Life is tough.  I have never been bullied to the extent that it appears these kids were, so I don't know the anguish they felt and how they must have dreaded school every day.  What I do know and what someone (either parents or teachers) should have told them is that the kids bullying them are douchebags.  That the bullies probably will have peaked in high school.  That while life is tough, it's also short.  That high school will be over before you know it -- even when it feels like an eternity.  That dead is dead and that no one should kill themselves over some punks calling them names and pushing them into lockers.  This is the issue.  Yes, that school does seem to have a problem with bullying, but when 4 kids kill themselves I think that's the larger issue, no?  

Now, for bullying.  See above about the douchebags.  There are 2 -- not mutually exclusive -- approaches that parents can take when their kids are bullied:  1) tell them to ignore it, to laugh it off, to get through it until they graduate and leave that hellhole and/or 2) get your kid into some martial arts class and kicking some serious ass.  I'm serious.  Bullies in every stage of life are nothing more than insecure little punks who have to go on the offensive against others because they're afraid they're going to get bullied if they don't bully first.  So, kick their ass.  High school is probably the last time it will be socially acceptable to kick a bully's ass.  You can't do it at work and you risk more serious legal repercussions if you do it in college.  So, take advantage.  The best advice my parents ever gave me was, "you can't start a fight, but you can sure as hell finish one."  

Incidentally, my mother had a bully in her neighborhood growing up.  He would terrorize her sisters.  One day after school, you know what my mother did?  She kicked his ass -- Ralphie-style.  Problem solved.

What kids (and adults) need to understand is that we can only control our own actions and reactions to what happens around us.  No matter what the problem is, suicide is always an overreaction.  It doesn't solve anything and only leaves more pain in its wake.  To address these kids taking their own lives through the prism of bullying is a huge mistake and misses an opportunity to reach all of the kids at that school and talk about what really matters -- life.