Amanda Todd

So here we are yet again. We have another young girl, a 15-year-old by the name of Amanda Todd, who has taken her own life in British Columbia, Canada, due to bullying. The facts surrounding the incident are the young girl apparently had taken a picture of herself "flashing" the camera, which typically means nudity. The picture got on Facebook and some people started making her life a miserable hell ending in her taking her own life. I first and foremost want to talk about how ridiculous a tragedy this is and how it's an absolute waste.

Another life that could have been saved has fallen to the wayside and now families and friends and all kinds of other people have to wonder why. Now they are left to pick up the pieces and for me personally, working in this line and seeing these kinds of kids each and every day, I'm just so fed up. I'm frustrated! I don't understand how the parents of Amanda Todd are missing this and how they couldn't have prevented their daughter from taking such drastic measures. I'm sorry I have to say it, but how did you not know more? How did you miss this? Does it make me a bad person because I ask these questions? Aren't any of you thinking the same thing? On the flip-side of this coin, I can't imagine how the parents of the bullies have no idea what their kids are doing! How can you allow your children to continuously behave in this manner? I'm so tired of the, "We didn't know what our child was up to" excuse, it's time we demand more. 

I've been around these young individuals all my life. Especially the ones who were on the brink of taking their own lives, the ones who've thought about taking their own lives and the ones who survived into their adult lives thinking about taking their lives for the last 15 to 20 plus years. The number one thing that seems to come out from all of them is it's not the act of bullying or the repeated acts of bullying that made them contemplate or actually commit suicide. It was the immense feelings of desperation, the feelings of isolation, and the feelings of being completely alone. The majority of these kids all talked about how they had a lack of trust or no trust with their parents and if they had a trust with their parents they would've continually talked to their parents about what was bothering them so much. These kids all talk about being ashamed at home, believe it or not, worse than going back to school to face these kids, it was going back to face their parents that made it worse. 

It's one thing to be bullied and picked on by kids at school, it's another thing to go home and tell your father or mother and they in turn respond to you as such,"What are you a girl or a boy? You going to let little things like this bother you? Why don't you go to your room and cry about it and don't come out until you know how to be tough! I don't have time for these insignificant things"! That is what I hear all the time in my line of work. It was a feeling of worthlessness and shame that these kids held inside and it typically stemmed from lack of support and understanding from their parents. Think about it, if we know that one consistent adult in a child's life is enough to build resilience, isn't it fair to say that the ones without a consistent adult are the ones who are falling so far?  

I remember working with a young individual who routinely spoke of his bullying issues, but more than those he described how he felt worthless around his parents, how they didn't care about him or his problems and when he tried to talk to his father he was too busy, he blew him off, or he didn't validate him. To make a long story short this young man took his own life and after he did his father came out and was the loudest person you could hear screaming for justice! It was the schools fault, it was the other juvenile delinquents in the neighbourhood, it was the teacher's, it was everyone but him! I took it as his immense guilt and disappointment that would not allow him to come out and say what he really felt. "Maybe if I had been there for my son this wouldn't have happened!!!" Maybe if we stop pointing a finger in every direction but at ourselves we would see more change. Maybe if parents these days weren't insulted or slighted when another adult points out their child is struggling, then we would have a chance at change. I know this may sound crazy but I believe that a child who takes their own life is being bullied or ignored at home as much, if not more, than they are in school or online. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we all need to come together; parents, community, teachers and all other individuals and we need to say "enough is enough". We need to educate our victims, we need to educate our bystanders, we need to educate our bullies, we need to assess all these individuals and we need to stop blaming. We also need to stop generalizing, and stop thinking that punishment and labelling is the best way to deal with these kids. Enough is enough there's got to be a better way and we need to accept that nothing we are doing is working. How many more kids, how many more videos, and how many more suicides? We all got to watch more of what's going on in our kids lives!

We at The Josh Project are trying to make that difference. As a former victim of bullying and then the one who was rejected because he fought back, I have dedicated my life to making a difference in the lives of at-risk youth. We need a more balanced approach and we must start as young as possible. Why not start these programs that begin for Kindergarten age and go all the way up to graduating students? The more we educate, the more effect it will have on the decisions these children and youth are making in their day to day lives.

Do we really have to accept or believe that these kids have free reign over everything and that parents have no idea and teachers have no idea? Who does have an idea and what are we willing to do about it? Why do we have so many parents that don't know what their 14 and 15 year olds are doing? What is this world we live in? It's unfathomable to me that the parents or schools cannot intervene and do more.

The schools should have mandated programs, the school staff should have mandated parameters to take action and act on situations and there needs to be serious checks and balances in place that allow those who are given the charge to educate our children to be held more accountable if they do not take more preventative measures.

Please find a way to do more, www.JoshuaStern.ca, every life is important let's start acting that way."