Online bullying led to this boy's suicide

It doesnt just happen to children.
Adults too love bullying others.
The blame is put on the "sensitive" child or "sensitive" adult, or those that for whatever reason do not use abusive language back at the perpertrator. Or the victin "doesnt understand" or "are not bright enough to realise it is a joke" the perpertrators are "only messing".
Only moderators can stop it in my opinion.
Or else the young and old have to switch off the chat forums.

Children and adolescents are much more vulnerable than adults, IMHO and it is easy to say "switch off chat forums" but if you had read the article, this boy (and he is not the first victim and will sadly not be the last) endured 7 years or being socially ostracised - friendships, birthday parties, "mates", every aspect of his young life.
I cannot quite put myself in his poor parents' place, it is too painful.

This is just shocking, and heartrending to read. It's just beyond me how people young and old can be so terrible to another person. My mother once told me that there is a very thin line between teasing and tormenting and that both should be avoided, something I have always tried to live up to. Those poor parents, and that poor young man to be driven to such lengths by such vile contemporaries is just too horrible.

Those who initiate bullying have serious issues of their own.That though does not excuse what this does to those whose life they make a living hell and in the case of this young man a loss of a precious life.
Their is always a ring leader ie a 'toughie'who will have followers.These 'sheep I will call them' become six feet tall in the company of 'toughie' They too like toughie may come from a disfuctional family or are bullied themselves at home..
Schools/workplaces must be held responsible. They must know it is going on and should make it known to those in their care they are there to be informed, and that this will be confidential,of ongoing bullying and who? are the ring leaders.Have any parents ever sued the educational authorities for failing to acknowledge their awareness that those in their care were victims of abuse.Time for a wake up call is necessary to stamp this mental and physical abuse out once and for all.

Thank you for highlighting this Daphne. I believe it is such a serious issue that every school should give talks to staff and pupils, and it should be monitored on an ongoing basis.

Not easy to do I know, as you say, even 'nice children' do this, hiding behind the safely of the more obvious perpetrators. I think there is an inciduous culture of fear that envelopes and hooks in weaker children. Very much like the mass hysteria that the nazis invoked....and no... I don't think that's an extreme comparison. Bullying takes and away, and ruins lives.

What a shame that cuts in spending have meant schools no longer have the means to employ counsellors. Pastoral care is very much needed here.

This scares me too on behalf of my DGDs, it is just awful. Children have not learnt to rein in the animal instincts to weed out the weakest and social media has meant that there is not even any respite for the tormented in their own homes these days. Bullying has always been around, I was bullied at school but I was able to escape at home.
Heartbreaking that children are regularly taking their own lives and I have no idea how the parents cope with the grief

This is tragic. I don't remember children being so cruel when I was young, but maybe that was because there was no internet to make it easy to bully. I don't know what the answer is, perhaps parents should be more aware of what their children are posting on forums.

In schools, they should deal with it.

On Online forums, the moderators.

In the work place, bosses.

What seems to happen, is that they need to see a lot of evidence before they act.

They should act sooner, but they are scared to, in case they get it wrong with such a strong accusation.

But meanwhile , perpertrators get away with it for longer, and the victim suffers with it for longer.

Whistleblowing in general, is still seen as something not nice in some quarters.

Also of course, most teachers, work colleagues etc dont want to have to deal with it. They want an easy, non complicated, non messy, life.

Also of course, most teachers, work colleagues etc dont want to have to deal with it. They want an easy, non complicated, non messy, life

Yeah, right.
1) this is rubbish simply not the case
2) also unhelpful
3) if only it were as easy as your post of 11.38 suggests.
Try telling that to grieving parents

It most definitely is the case.

We can agree to differ.

I agree to differ.

Having worked extensively in secondary education on the issues behind bullying, why some children are identified as potential victims early on and why others "escape" as well as looking carefully at the background, motivation and rationale behind the bullies themselves, I can say categorically that your sweeping generalisation certainly does NOT apply in education.
Don't be so quick to pass judgement.

I have been a school governor in a primary school for 4 years for example.
I cannot possibly see how you can speak for all schools everywhere .

I agree to differ.

<sigh> nor can you.
But after 30 years in secondary education, I defer to your superior experience.

FFS give it a rest you two.

I do not profess to speak for all schools everywhere, whatever sort they are. It is not possible.

So I will repeat it.

Also of course, most teachers, work colleagues etc dont want to have to deal with it. They want an easy, non complicated, non messy, life

I am not speaking personally about you DB[I couldnt even remember you were a teacher?], or any schools you have ever worked in.

I tried to agree to differ Anya.

most teachers, work colleagues etc dont want to have to deal with it. They want an easy, non complicated, non messy,life

Let's slag off blame the teachers again is it any wonder dedicated, idealistic but too often exhausted teachers become disillusioned and leave the profession?

I think teenage suicides resulting from bullying are a bigger problem however with more complex reasons. This tragedy was not unique.

It's horrible Daphne heartbreaking in fact.

Of course there are ways to stop cyber bullying and it's relatively easy to do although you have to be a 'little bit' computer savvy. Change the password, change the internet account, change or complain to the ISP (internet service provider) and demand the person/s are blocked, make blocking filters from incoming emails to cancel out all the people you don't want to entertain (I currently have 45 such filters in place) subscribe to parental control. So it's fairly straightforward and if you don't know how seek advice. Finally and most importantly, NEVER let VULNERABLE children have unsupervised internet access

Plus all the schools involved have got to take some of the flak for this.
As the parent involved, and sadly says, she is trying to educate the educators.

In my day, 20 years ago, there were bullying protocols in place. And these were looked at on a rolling basis to keep them up to date.
I assumed and assume still they were and are in every school.

This isnt the dark ages. Bullying has always been around, and in every school I should think.

No excuse in 2016 for a parent to have to try and educate the educators.

Unfortunately, filtering websites does not stop cyberbullying. Additionally, it is almost impossible to stop a teenager from having unsupervised access to the internet. Even if parents don't allow unsupervised access in their own home, most teenagers have smartphones/ipads and it only takes five minutes on the way home from school or in a friend's house for the damage to be done.

A typical scenario might be for somebody to take an embarrassing photo of the victim or start spreading a malicious rumour. Such pictures and messages can be round the whole school (even the whole world) in seconds. It doesn't help if the victim has no access to the internet or can't access the apps being used. What often happens next is that gangs of sometimes unknown people start making comments and/or push and shove or blacklist the victim. There's nothing new about all this, but it can spread a great deal faster than in the past. Sometimes the victim doesn't even see the original photo or picture.

My personal view is that filters and blocking sites give parents a false sense of security. It's far better to encourage a teenager to talk, which is easier said than done if you have a full-blown, moody, monosyllabic teenager on your hands, but I think it's far better to try and build up resilience to bullying. If possible, parents can face the perpetrator(s).

@obieone

Schools have to have a bullying policy by law and, in my experience, some schools are better at dealing with it than others. It really isn't true that teachers don't want to know, but sometimes there is a limit to what they can do, if the bullying is occurring on the way to/from school or at home, which is more than often the case.