Communities all throughout the U.S. have been discussing the issue of stopping school violence for many years but it often feels like things are getting worse rather than better. There are school shootings, brutal attacks on individual students, and hallway riots that take the lives of young kids every single year. With all of the focus on preventing this type of behavior, why are kids become more and more violent at school?

Bullying has always been considered a part of growing up and maybe it is just human nature, however as the years progress it has been taken to unreasonable degrees. I’m sure there’s substantial numbers of children who have been severely bullied in various forms over the decades – who have had to tolerate all kinds of cruelty and violence that we’ll never know about… no doubt being told to just "tough it out". No child should have to undergo the brutality of bullying.

There has been a new addition to the slang dictionary: bullycide. This word was coined as a short cut for suicides committed by the victims of severe bullying. This word has even been used by national news broadcasters and shows how bad bullying has become today. Many kids have chosen to take their own lives rather than walk another day down those school hallways.

Not only has bullying seem to be been taken to more serious degrees today, but there appears to often be no place for the victims to find refuge. Not only do they have to be taunted and pushed around in the hallways and on the playground, but they have to suffer it out through their email accounts, social networking accounts, and text messages. Many kids are even being brutally attacked while riding on the school bus.

Here is another term that has been termed in recent years which is now engrained in our culture: cyber bullying. This is where kids are harassed and bullied through the Internet. This is often done through messages on social networking sites and some kids will even set up bogus accounts falsely representing their victim in order to taunt and embarrass them.

There is a clear connection between the escalating brutality of bullying and the escalation of violence in schools. If we are ever to succeed at stopping school violence we have to realize that bullying is contributing to the school shootings, suicides and other drastic actions that many victims feel driven to perform.

So, is there really any way of stopping school violence? Are things just going to get worse and worse no matter how hard we try?

Many people believe that stopping school violence is an impossible feat. They argue that there will always be some form of violence or bullying occurring inside our schools because it is the nature of youngsters. Even if that is true, when students, teachers, school administration, and parents work together great things can happen in our schools.

A lot of the responsibility for stopping school violence rests with the parents. It is more important today than ever that parents monitor the activities of their children. This includes monitoring their activities online and with their cell phones. Parents must intervene quickly if they believe their child is either being bullied or bullying others.

Teachers also share some of the responsibility since they are in the midst of these kids day after day and could pick up on signs of trouble. School administrators should also implement strict zero tolerance policies for violence which strongly discourage inappropriate behaviors. Programs can also be started to lower the levels of bullying occurring in the school hallways.

In the days of bullycide and cyber bullying it is important that we at least try to stop violence amongst our youth. Perhaps skeptics are right that stopping school violence and bulllying is an impossible feat. But that doesn't give us the right to sit back and watch our children suffer the repercussions of bullying.

© By Mandy-Jane Clarke

Stop-Bullies.com