Parents get a false sense of security in regards to their children while they attend school. I brought up five very special students that were adopted and I raised as a single male parent. I thought that once they were all on their respective buses that they were going to be in the hands of professionals and would be safe. I also knew as special needs kids they were all going to be subjected to a small degree of harassment. The kids who ride the "short bus" always have this problem. Many children who go to school are not prepared for what the might face, the school bully. It can be a far more serious problem than many parents realize. Here are a few School Bullying Statistics from recent Surveys:

• More than seventy five percent of our children are a target of bullying by a bully or Cyber-Bully and undergo physical, psychological and/or emotional abuse.
• Over 20% of our students confess to being a bully or taking part in bullying actions.
• Greater than one half of bullying & Cyber-Bullying events go unreported to someone who can help them with the problem..
• In recently completed surveys confirmed over 100,000 students carried guns to school as a result of being bullied.
• Twenty eight percent of teenagers who carry weapons in school have been witness to violence in their homes.
• On an average day 160,000 kids miss school because they are concerned that they'll be bullied if they attend classes.
• On an average month 282,000 children are physically attacked by a school bully each month.
• Every seven minutes a kid is bullied on a school playground with greater than 85 percent of those instances occurring without any intervention.
• 46 percent of boys and 26% of females admit to having been a participant in physical confrontations as a result of being bullied.
• More than 85 percent of our teenagers disclose that revenge as an aftermath of being bullied is the leading cause for school shootings and homicide.
• The top 5 states in regards to reported events of bullying & Cyberbullying are California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
• A child commits suicide as a direct result of being bullied once every 30 minutes with 19,000 bullied kids trying to commit suicide during the span of one year.

It is easy to conclude from the facts listed above that we must take action to address this danger to our children. Unfortunately, as indicated above, most instances of school bully activity go unreported by the student victims. As a result it is hard for educators and parents to help the victim in dealing with the harm that may have been inflicted upon them by a bully.

A relatively new type of bully, the Cyber-Bully, is relevant in schools as well as home and is a growing concern for parents when trying to protect their kids from this form of abuse. Cyberbullying is the bullying of kids making use of the internet and follows the victims into the schools when they return to classes. It is so serious that over 1/3 of our kids who use the web are victims of the Cyberbully.