Amanda Todd’s death hit many of us really hard, for so many reasons. She was unhappy for such a long time. Despite the sadness of what she went through, I think the video she made of her struggles has helped make us all think a bit more about what’s going on with kids today.
What saddens me the most isn’t the horrific way someone decided to try to ruin her life. Don’t get me wrong. It saddens me immensely but somehow, we know there are bad people out there. What really hit me the hardest was that having made a mistake was enough for friends to cast her aside. New friends, years after a photo that she shouldn’t have been put in a position to have recorded for posterity was taken, stopped being friends with her.
I know I don’t know the whole story, and I know I’m not a teenager, but here are a few things I’d like to say… to my kids when they’re ready, to teenagers out there now, and to the me who could have been a teenager in these days if born 20 years later.
- We all make mistakes. I guarantee everyone does things they regret. An error in judgement does not make for a bad person, even if that error in judgement becomes something tangible that can’t be deleted.
- Being there for people who have made mistakes makes you a better person. Forgiving people and helping people is a far kinder and better thing to do as a human being than to judge someone.
- When you make a mistake, you don’t deserve to be punished. You too deserve forgiveness and support.
- The internet and hateful words have more power than you can imagine. The mob of kids you can get going in the school yard is nothing compared to the angry mobs ready and waiting on the internet. Though I don’t believe you should ever say hateful things to people, certainly don’t say them online.
- Don’t say anything online to anyone, or post photos online anywhere, that you wouldn’t want your mother, your grandmother or your school principle seeing. There is no guarantee they won’t be the ones seeing it, so think ahead. I know it’s hard. Try.
- There is nothing weak about being overwhelmed, scared and depressed. Let people help you and don’t make people feel bad for needing help.
- Be careful. Though kids may not be crueler now than they were when I was a kid (they were plenty unkind back then too) there is this new arsenal of tools that can make moments you regret impossible to forget.
I feel for kids who are bullied and who make some bad choices in life. Being a kid is hard. Being a kid who is bullied is harder. Being a kid who can’t figure out how to get away from it must be unbearable. I want to help. I wish I knew where to start.
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Jason and I were talking about escaping the bullying.
While I was relentlessly bullied all day at school throughout the entirety of grade six; when I went home, it all stopped.
Now, because of the internet and Facebook and texting and Twitter, home is no longer a safe refuge for the victims of bullying.
I, too, wish I had some answers.
It’s sad. I don’t even know how else to put it.
It’s scary. Scares me because it’s limitless — and not exclusive to young people either.
I think we’ve got to keep talking to our kids about it — tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, support, respect — and more importantly showing them through the choices we make and how we conduct ourselves in life and online.
I also think I’m going to print this post or forward it to a couple of young people, Lara.
Thank you.
I think some of what needs to be learned is also empathy. And the point on there for me that is most intense is that just because you did something wrong doesn’t justify people outing you and hurting you online for it it. And yet, I heard a teen tell me that when it happened to her there wasn’t much that could be done. She had, after all, done the thing they told all of the internet about… so she figured she deserved it.
How does that make it ok?!?
Yes. This. All of this.
Such a brilliant post. I was a very bullied girl who also had to change schools, and my heart breaks every time I hear of another teen suicide. I could have been one of them. I almost was one of them. And I’ve been writing a fair bit about this on my blog over the last little while because it’s such an important topic.
Thank you for writing this. I know it will help someone. And most importantly, it’s an example of how supportive and understanding you will be for your teens when they make mistakes (and they will, I’ve realized with my own. Even the really solid ones.)
When I think about my teen years (and let’s be honest, way past just my teen years), I was a fairly responsible not too crazy kid. And I made a ton of mistakes that would haunt me if there had been smart phones!
Great post Lara, and those are fantastic talking points. Since Amanda’s story came out I’ve been thinking about this a lot as well. My kids are a bit older than yours… talking to them about this kind of stuff is a whole different ballgame.
There’s a lot of talk about bullying being on the rise. Is it true, or are more people just talking about it now? Or is it just more visible with the advent of social media? I have been thinking a lot about the sociological reasons *why bullies even exist.* What’s going on in their brains? Where, as a society, have we gone wrong for those people? Is it a symptom of bad parenting? Too much TV? Where’s the kindness and the empathy gone?
I find this all hard, and sad, and exasperating. My son has been targeted for his size. And I worry about that a lot. I wonder if bullying is almost like drinking and driving. It was acceptable at one point but now with all the coverage and exposure it will eventually lose it popularity. I don’t know. Humans can be horrible people. And teens often feel they have no where to turn, even if they do. If they just waited a few years… It is so hard.
Thank you for writing this. Two years ago I made a mistake and was on the receiving end of that lack of empathy, kindness, forgiveness and support. I’m still paying the price and it sucks.