Hopefully people will start to take bullying more seriously

[rayo de sol]

Beyond the blow to self-esteem, bullying can hurt the brain, too

As well, animal studies have shown that chronic high levels of stress can kill brain cells. Dr. Vaillancourt says this kind of damage may help explain why children who are bullied often perform poorly academically.

[mamahart]

There was a recent article about an Irish teen who committed suicide after intense bullying, related to her attractiveness to her new schoolmates. It was so upsetting.
My 13 year old homeschools now partially due to what I call "the culture of meanness' that seems prevalent at her old school. It's such a waste of fantastic kids!

[proudmomof4]

Some pretty scary facts but like one of the people who left comments I'm wondering about cause and effect. Do those teens get depressed because they're being bullied or do already depressed send out certain signals that they might be an "easy target" - or is it a vicious cycle (depression causes bullying causes depression causes ...)?

Anyway, whatever the cause it shows that this issue should be taken a lot more seriously and not be handled along the lines of "kids will be kids".