We were born into a safe world...only knowing the sound of our mother and father maybe even a sibling.
We feared nothing, we hated no one, we trust everything and everyone that we recognized.
We cried only when our bodies told us that we are in hunger or in pain.
We did not know the pain and loneliness of words...YET!
We grew in trust and belief in our early years because we had nothing else to compare our lives with YET!
Why does this safe world and total feeling of healthy self-worth and self-esteem stop?
The we enter our first year in the education system...all of a sudden things become contrary to what we knew up to then. We hear how different life can be in different households. We see how different others dress, eat and act towards others. We begin to grow away from our nest.
We move forward and continue into another year, then another, all along gathering memories of life as we experience it in the world of growth. Some memories are good and some are not so good. Some of us are strong enough to stand up to the negativity we experience and move along smoothly. Others are not so strong and fall into a whirlwind of abuse cycles called bully-ism and the abuse that goes along with that.
We fear not being accepted and then we fear that if we do not allow the abuse from the bullies that we will never get any attention ever from them. So in turn we allow the abuse. We become our own abusers of sorts. WE become driven to gain an acknowledgment or acceptance of any kind just to feel that we are alive in their eyes.
What do these bully's have over us, that we will allow, even welcome the abuse? Abuse that takes form in so many ways, whether it be physical, name calling, hazing, ridiculing and/or ***ual harassment.
Where do these bullies come from?
Where do they learn to hurt and hate just in the name of fun?
What about the kids that just follow along because of their fear of not being accepted? Are they bullies too?
There are many sides to this horrible world of bullies and victims. The bully had to learn or not learn civilized treatment of others somewhere. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, we were born without hate and fear.
Where did the victim loose their sense of self-respect?
OR
Their strength to stand up and say STOP or NO?
These are questions that we must find the answers to if we are ever going to begin to learn how to overcome the issue of bullying.
Our children are becoming bullies and victims because of how they feel about themselves inside and/or what they are perceiving is simply fun and games.
I have attached a story that comes from my community. This is way to close to home even for me.
Please read this and instead of reading the names of the children that you see...replace the names with your children's names.
Do not be fooled...this is a reality that your children and mine are living every day even if they do not make you aware of it.
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Police: 3 DeLand school teens plotted murder
By ROSA RAMIREZ
Staff Writer DELAND -- Three DeLand Middle School students, including one who claimed to admire the shooters of the Columbine High School massacre, face felony charges for reportedly plotting to shoot classmates and then themselves, authorities said Friday.
The Volusia County Sheriff's Office took all three students -- two boys and a girl -- into custody and is charging them with conspiracy to commit murder. The three seventh-graders have been transported to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach, sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.
The teens were identified by authorities as Austin Mohr, Tyler Christian and Charlene Russell, all 13. Davidson said the State Attorney's Office will determine if the teens will be charged as juveniles or adults.
Davidson said the plot was uncovered March 5 after a student who was not involved received a text message from Austin Mohr saying he wanted to shoot students at the school during lunch break. The teen who received the instant message told a family member, and the adult notified authorities.
Mohr posed as a 19-year-old boy on a MySpace Web page with "satanic references, a picture of a tombstone and other disturbing images," Davidson said in a statement.
Mohr had also posted on the social network site that he admired two shooters responsible for the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.
In the text message, Mohr directed his rage against two students, in particular, but went on to say he would kill "every person I see . . . The massacre will happen soon."
The teen, who claimed he was being teased and picked on at school, wrote that he wanted to lock the cafeteria door during one of the lunch periods and shoot people there, authorities said.
"The good news is that several people did the right thing along the way," Davidson said Friday during a news briefing at the middle school. "It enabled us to begin the investigation very quickly. The (principal) was instrumental in identifying some of the students involved in the conspiracy."
Showing up at the news briefing, Charlene Russell's sister, Melissa, 16, said her sister "has never been like this before."
Melissa Russell said her sister was in choir, made good grades and was on the honor roll. But after breaking up with her boyfriend, she "just has been talking about doing nothing."
Charlene Russell feels bad and would take it back if she could, her sister said. After Austin Mohr started talking about plans for the shooting, Charlene Russell "went along with it because she didn't know what else to do," Melissa Russell said.
Days earlier, Melissa Russell said, her sister lay on a set of railroad tracks in Orange City and had to be pulled away minutes before a train rolled by.
Attempts to reach relatives of the other teens were not successful Friday evening.
After the threats came to light, all three students received mental-health evaluations, Davidson said, including one who was taken into a facility under the state's Baker Act.
"The investigators determined the students did not appear to have weapons or means to carry out the threats," he said.
The students were automatically removed from the school when the plot was uncovered, Davidson said.
Volusia County Schools spokeswoman Nancy Wait said DeLand Middle School Principal Matt Krajewski sent a message to parents after news of the events was released Friday, stressing that students' safety on campus was not compromised at any time.
"We learned a lot from Columbine, and one of the lessons was to listen and take action," Wait said.
Wait said the students meet weekly for 20 minutes during homeroom to talk about bullying on campus.
"This school has a very strong anti-bullying campaign," Wait said.
rosa.ramirez@news-jrnl.com
~D~
DorothyL@womensselfesteem.com
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