It Gets Better

[The Master]

America has become painfully aware of the bullying problem in our country with heart wrenching stories of children committing suicide grabbing headlines. I cannot begin to tell you how heartbreaking it is to me to hear that a 13 year old child felt their only answer is to end their life. We simply cannot tolerate that happening.

Being a teen can be a very tough time for many kids. As we reach our teens the pressure to conform can be astronomical, and the pressure on anyone who is, or simply is perceived to be, different can be incredibly brutal and even vicious. It is imperative that we flood our children with the message that no matter how difficult things seem at the time it gets better. Today there is a large number of celebrities and others coming forward to make sure that message is heard. I wanted to share one of these messages with you:

[BBvideo 640,385]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax96cghOnY4[/BBvideo]

[Ariel]

What a wonderful video Master!! This is such an extremely important issue and one that must be dealt with. It breaks my heart to see what has happened to so many of our beautiful children. There should be some kind of weekly pep talks or something in school that will encourage kids to have compassion for their fellow classmates. They could include in the talks how bullying will not be tolerated ever for any reason or there will be reprecussions.

What is going on at home with the kids who are bullies???

[Qray]

I agree that suicide isn't the answer to anything and I understand what you're saying. However, it doesn't always get better. What suicide does though, is eliminate the possibility that it will.

[Alex F]

Kids the world over definately need to be taught that to be different is not necessarily a bad thing and that the thing that dominates as being different in someone to themselves is not all that this different person is. Yes X might be gay, but that's not all they are. Kids need to be taught to see through black and white at an earlier age to the shades of grey that all human beings are, to see through ignorance and misunderstanding about people and things which are different to what they understand in their own lives so we can try and prevent bullying and the horrible consequences.

Its a cultural change that is required I think as much as everything else, those tired old boundaries and cliques need to be expunged and destroyed, make it unacceptable for kids to section themselves off into different types of people within the school environment, nerds, jocks etc in the case of America. The attitude that there are just people not groups and stereotypes needs to be perpetuated in my opinion.

Still, I agree with the sentiments to tell bullied kids all over the world, something I wish someone had told me when I was that age and being bullied myself at school, 'it gets better' because the real world doesn't fit such narrow stereotypes and that can only be a positive message of hope for all those kids miserable in school.