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Another gay teen bullied, another suicide, another family devastated.
The ONLY way this will stop is if parents counter the hateful messages our children encounter outside the home.
No matter your beliefs regarding homosexuality, we MUST teach that it is wrong, illegal, and deadly to bully.
Can you imagine being the mother of one of the kids who bullied the brilliant Rutgers student whose body was found in the river? I'm sure they'd give anything to go back and start teaching their children NOT to do what they did.
If your kids are still young, you have that chance.
I totally agree. Unbelievable that someone (supposedly a young adult) would think it funny to ruin this young man's life by making the tape and showing it on the internet.
Another gay teen bullied, another suicide, another family devastated.
The ONLY way this will stop is if parents counter the hateful messages our children encounter outside the home.
No matter your beliefs regarding homosexuality, we MUST teach that it is wrong, illegal, and deadly to bully.
Can you imagine being the mother of one of the kids who bullied the brilliant Rutgers student whose body was found in the river? I'm sure they'd give anything to go back and start teaching their children NOT to do what they did.
If your kids are still young, you have that chance.
I posted this somewhere else, but I'm not sure where. However, I think it bears repeating. When my daughter was a baby, I read something somewhere by a man who said not to make it your primary worry about whether your kid is toilet trained faster than the kid next door or is breastfed longer or learns his ABC's first or any of the other superficial crap. Worry about what kind of person you want that child to be when they grow up. Start teaching them early that their actions affect others. Teach them consideration and compassion and that they are part of a larger world.
Our job is to raise children to become self-sufficient adults of good character. If you've got the smartest kid in the class, or the best player on the team but you haven't raised a PERSON who has been taught how to treat others, then you've pretty much failed as a parent.
Another gay teen bullied, another suicide, another family devastated.
The ONLY way this will stop is if parents counter the hateful messages our children encounter outside the home.
No matter your beliefs regarding homosexuality, we MUST teach that it is wrong, illegal, and deadly to bully.
Can you imagine being the mother of one of the kids who bullied the brilliant Rutgers student whose body was found in the river? I'm sure they'd give anything to go back and start teaching their children NOT to do what they did.
If your kids are still young, you have that chance.
While i agree people shouldn't hate, this young man was already disturbed most likely. People don't just get bullied into ending their lives....there is already an underlying psychological issue going on.
I posted this somewhere else, but I'm not sure where. However, I think it bears repeating. When my daughter was a baby, I read something somewhere by a man who said not to make it your primary worry about whether your kid is toilet trained faster than the kid next door or is breastfed longer or learns his ABC's first or any of the other superficial crap. Worry about what kind of person you want that child to be when they grow up. Start teaching them early that their actions affect others. Teach them consideration and compassion and that they are part of a larger world.
Our job is to raise children to become self-sufficient adults of good character. If you've got the smartest kid in the class, or the best player on the team but you haven't raised a PERSON who has been taught how to treat others, then you've pretty much failed as a parent.
This is so true, I was always taught treat others as you want to be treated and that is what we have always taught our kids. Since most people like to be treated with respect it usually works well. Sometimes though it can get hard to explain why some kid is hateful to my younger one, he just doesn't understand why some kids treat others they way they do.
Being from NJ, this incident is all over the news and radio here. While I understand what you are saying and fully agree about raising kids to be good people first, I have to agree with paganmama that this particular person had something else going on in order to end their life that way.
Very few details about him personally have come out, but the interesting piece was that he was not closeted about his sexuality, at least at school. He had more than one liason in his room where he asked the roommate to leave, which is why the roommate knew what was going on. Can't defend the actions of the roommate in the least, but there was something else troubling this young man and this incident simply put him over the edge.
While i agree people shouldn't hate, this young man was already disturbed most likely. People don't just get bullied into ending their lives....there is already an underlying psychological issue going on.
That's a blanket statement which is simply not true. Bullying can, and has, directly caused the death of children with no previous pathological issues.
While i agree people shouldn't hate, this young man was already disturbed most likely. People don't just get bullied into ending their lives....there is already an underlying psychological issue going on.
You may be right, but recent studies have concluded the opposite. Young people often are unable to reason long term consequences as fully as adults. It's a brain connection thing that doesn't fully form until later. This means what we may recognize as a temporary (or even minor) problem may appear to them to be insurmountable, thereby resorting to suicide. An otherwise normal, healthy teen can be brought down by a situation such as humiliating bullying.
In other words, it may be convenient to blame the victim. but it just doesn't stand up.
Being from NJ, this incident is all over the news and radio here. While I understand what you are saying and fully agree about raising kids to be good people first, I have to agree with paganmama that this particular person had something else going on in order to end their life that way.
Very few details about him personally have come out, but the interesting piece was that he was not closeted about his sexuality, at least at school. He had more than one liason in his room where he asked the roommate to leave, which is why the roommate knew what was going on.
I'm not closeted about my sexuality either, but I certainly wouldn't appreciate my roommate inviting random people to watch via webcam, and would at the very least be mortally embarrassed. And I'm not an eighteen year old kid, with all the angst and drama typical of the age.
I find it interesting the tendency of people to assume the situation must have details and undercurrents that might explain Trevor's pain. I guess that way it's possible to feel invincible: "oh, my kid is just fine, so no worries HERE." As if it's the victim's fault, because he obviously must be a nutcase.
yeah the underlying psychological issue is that he lived in a society where he knew he would be ostracized and condemed if he was his authentic self. Most homosexuals realize this at a very young age. Unfortunately they also realize or are taught that they have very little worth as human beings by a society which tolerates hate and hate mongering.
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