Bullying:How are victims reacting?

So many parents have reached out to me throughout the years in search of an answer to stop their kids from being bullied. Either more people are reporting bullying or more kids are getting bullied. It is really hard for parents because when they step in at their child's school, there's a good chance their child will get bullied even more. I wish I had the solution.

FROM SCIENCE DAILY: Many wonder why bullies bully, but a new study looks at the other side of the equation: How do children respond to bullying and why? The answer, researchers say, may lead to more effective interventions to reduce the negative consequences -- and perhaps even the frequency -- of bullying.

Consciously or not, children tend to adopt one of three approaches, University of Illinois psychology professor Karen Rudolph said. "Some are focused on developing their relationships. They want to improve their social skills. They want to learn how to make friends," she said.

Others are most interested in "demonstrating their competence," she said. They may try to demonstrate their competence by enhancing their status or seeking approval from their peers. "These are kids who say: 'I want to be cool. I want lots of kids to like me. I want to hang out with the popular kids.' "

Or they may try to demonstrate their competence by avoiding negative judgments. "These are the kids who say, 'I'm not going to do anything that's going to draw negative attention, that's going to make me look like a loser, that's going to embarrass me,'" Rudolph said.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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How to handle a bully

FROM CBS: (CBS) Jaylen Arnold knows how it feels to be different. He's had Tourette's Syndrome for most of his nine years. As CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports, it makes his body twitch even though his brain is telling it to be still. Most times Jaylen can handle it. Last February Jaylen's twitches got worse, much worse.

It started when the kids at a new school began to bully him. "What did they say," Cobiella asked Jaylen. "You're a weird kid," he said. "You should just go back to where you came from." "How did that make you feel?" "Really sad, like real sad."

"I made a Web site called Jaylen's Challenge.org. It's about stopping bullying and so far it's working," he said. Jaylen's father, Harold Arnold said, "The emails started coming in by the hundreds, and probably thousands and I said 'this thing is taking off.'" In fact, so many people were inspired by Jaylen's story, that schools across the country wanted him to talk to their students and teachers too. Jaylen's advice for bullies? "Sit down and stop bullying," he said. And before long, he caught the eye of Hollywood and actor Dash Mihok.

"I saw this kid with Tourette's and this beautiful, sweet, loving soul who was being absolutely incredibly brave and it really touched me," Mihok said. He was so touched that he flew out to meet Jaylen and lent his own star power to Jaylen's cause. Dash knows how hard life can be for Jaylen - because he's been through it. Dash grew up with Tourette's too. "To have someone inspire you to be who you are and be unapologetic about it," Mihok said. "It's beautiful."

In the seven months since Jaylen launched his Web site he's given out more than 4,000 wristbands that say "bullying no way," to students and even a few stars - including Leonardo DiCaprio. Jaylen said his big dream is to "stop bullying forever." "He has Tourette's to help other people," his mom Robin said His dad Arnold is, "super proud. He's the best kid." Jaylen can't change the way his body acts, but he's ok with that. He said he doesn't get picked on anymore, because "all my friends defended me."

I love this story because dealing with bullies is really tough. I find it hard to determine whether someone is bullying my kindergartner or he is just sensitive. And it seems like everyone has different advice. At this point, I tell him to tell the other kid he doesn't like it when he acts that way and he doesn't want to play with him anymore. Other parents I talked to say to tell my kid to hit him back. That sounds awful, but when your kid gets picked on, you may feel a little different about what should be done. How do you handle bullying?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Don't Ignore Teenage Suicide

We don't typically report suicides at our television station for fear of glorifying the act, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Teenagers are more susceptible than many people know. Here's new research showing the teenage suicide rate is going up.

After 10 years of steady decline, researchers say a recent spike in the teen suicide rate is not a fluke and new prevention strategies need to be developed quickly. The teen suicide rate jumped nearly 20% from 2003-2004. That’s the largest one year change in 15 years.

Now, the most recent stats available (2004-2005) show the numbers are still significantly higher, and experts are concerned this could be a new trend. This study is being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Pediatric researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio plotted the actual suicide rates from 1996-2003 and based on that trend, they predicted the expected suicide rate for 2004-2005. Then they applied the actual 04-05 rate once it was available. While the actual suicide rate dipped slightly from the spike the year before, it was still 13% higher than it should have been based on the 10 year downward trend. That means significantly more teens committed suicide than anticipated for two years in a row.

Parents and pediatric experts are understandably disturbed about this finding. In the September 3rd JAMA, researchers at Nationwide Children’s call for action: more effort to identify why teens are committing suicide and to develop new prevention strategies.

These researchers say several factors may contribute to the continued high rate of suicides. They include: the influence of Internet social networks/bullying, a rise in military suicides, and higher rates of untreated depression following FDA required “black box” warnings on antidepressants. When the warnings went into effect in 2004, prescriptions of antidepressants dropped 22% - around the same time that teen suicides jumped 18%.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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