he has traveled here all the way from north carolina to give us extremely valuable insight today on bullying in schools and even though this isn't something he covered in his time as a special agent he's become very involved during his retirement lot of conversation for the last year or so i've since retiring i've been working in one of the public schools in north carolina which we're having behavior issues bulling being one of them so for the last year i've been very much instrumental in trying to curtail the issue bully twenty percent of kids that attend school health issues would pool while sixty four percent of kids never mention it to the purpose of going to anyone so you know when i think a bull in the things that come to my mind is to issues that are happening in him harm so toward in the school the young man there being bullied brought a weapon to school a farm and he discharged a strike in the gentleman law forces got involved he had to shut the school without it became a crisis so i'm very grateful that you are called in the subject of bullying when so let's go back to that story for a second the the young man who was the victim who bought a handgun in school how old was he he was about sixteen years old fifteen sixteen years old sixteen years old and how old was the person who would the gentleman who was bowling him who has been taking them seventeen so these are older kids they're not ignorant of what a gun is about what he did he come to all or all story but because of being bullied he felt he had nowhere to turn but to defend himself he knew that his father had a farm in the house so he brought the farm to school because he got to the point to were there was his breaking point he couldn't take anymore so this honor roll student who felt he had no other course of action available to him what do they they say was his intent because you had where he first of all where'd he strike the other child when he fired the weapon the in the arm so thank goodness it wasn't life threatening what matt ramifications that he faced first of all he was the victim but since he took that course of action what happened to him you know even though he had been bullied no he took the course of should've been addressed early in the year that's why we talk about statistical sixty four percent of the kids who do not report bully that's where the problem becomes good as long as you allow it to manifest it's thought to manifest itself in ways that we cannot control until it is something like this shots far to someone seriously being hurt sixty four percent is a staggering number i am a parent of several children i'm afraid that if suddenly something happens that brings it to light that if one of my children was being a bit victim of bullying and they never sent anything what kit which we do as parents so for example unfortunately only literally a few days ago i found out from one of the parents of my son's friends that in their community a twelve year old girl hung herself her parents found her hanging by the means of a belt she was twelve they had no idea she was being a victim of bulling she it turns out that she had reported it at some point they didn't realize it was to that extent so they knew she was having some issues but not that it was a severe bowling situation and it turned out when they found the records that the bully had texted her how angry she was that the victim had reported her to the school and she said she had obviously the bully was so upset and being reported she said why don't you just go hang yourself kill yourself and the young girl the twelve year old girl in sixth grade did just that so what else can you tell parents that can be something an action to take because if you don't even know it's happening you don't want the alternative you don't want your child then taking a handgun to school and link almost luckily that there was only one target the actual bully but it has not been the case where a child who brings a handgun to school then shoots many children not just the intended bully that they were thinking of harming initially this is so true i think that being a programmer so one of th that we the most that we do is we must have conversation and dialogue with the kiddies because with the invent of social media so many different ways to be bullied texting social media instagram facebook and the list goes on so we have empower our kids our true time with knowledge conversation and always make a point every day to have conversation with your kids not just how was a day let's talk about some things because no one knows the key is better than you know them then you know so what happens is when your kids come in every day check the temperature when i say check the temperature check and see how they're feeling if there's something is bothering and we know when our kids are being bothered or something is on their mind we do have dialogue if there's a problem we do address it there and now we need to get the prince involved the ministre does we need to take a whole list approach to bullying because we're losing too many kids who suffer from i don't want to go back to school the next day how to wh and this is shouldn't be allowed in a school setting as there are for learning but do you find that a lot of this bullying also had taken place in texting or social media and i'm by the way the kids that you mentioned as example in the shooting there were older children what is the scope of ages that you've seen billing take effect and the school system that you're involved in well currently i'm doing consulting work in a school in oakland is a middle school middle school a six seven eight degree so what we you know so i can understand how that would affect a young child that after school so on is taxing them social media saying things about them putting them in a place or space where they feel like they have no  concerned about it that's why as a parent it is very important to know that we get involve you get involved with what's going on with your kids and once you detect you need to address it head on what is it you should be ask your children because sometimes you  other than how's your day what did you do today how do you find out if they're being bullied because sometimes kids clam up they don't want to say anything did you find there were effective techniques in the school that you're involved in yes we at the school or at the school involved in what we do is we have if there's a problem because kids talk about it they actually know who's bullying who the bully is who's being bullied and what i do what we do there's a team of us we get the social workers a school involved and because some kids come to school and all they know is violence they come from a culture of this is how we was all issues when i have a problem with you so we set them down and at the table we have conversation what is it about this young kid that makes you want to bully bill would think that you're going to testify then we tell them what the ramifications are going to be if you carry on this behavior you would know you'd be if you just ask you know you'd be charge a petition in juvenile court i think when we were young they were called being picked on but no one in bowling what did some of the reasons that well you know what you have a range of reasons they think are reasons which are really not a reason from i don't like the way you look i don't like how you dress you think system that i'm a part of cry hopefully that all schools have a zero tolerance policy this this unfortunate has it ended and too many tragedies and those are just the extreme cases have you found that of course victims of boiling perhaps might have learning issues because maybe they're so fried it takes up a lot of their brain space if you will instead of being on the focus on the entire purpose of being at school that is so true you know there's another issue where you have kids who have a learning disability or they're not as well adept in an educational environment and other kids so they prey upon kids who are excelling and so they disrupt the class or you could be or you could have a child as excelling bullies the perpetrators do you find that there's a background of similarity when you've spoken to them are they perhaps victims themselves at home of any kind of abuse in the home environment a lot of times kids as bully ha been bullied our parents or a sibling whether weather be an environment that they're growing up in at home where they be being bullied by other siblings or they have been bullied in previous grades and now that they father they can bully someone else it's just a transition of what they were exposed to so most of the time when you find someone is bullying they have been bullied that makes a lot of sense but there has to be a way to stop a cycle when you tell these bullies why they should stop this network is that effective what we do is we have we have a program where we find kids who have disruptive behavior whether it be violence whether be bullying or disrupt behav what we try to do is get to the root problem is a lot of times we just address what we can see we try to unpack it's what's really going on with this here because of this kid to want to act out like this and what we have found is that when we teach kids other skill sets that because you may not be the brightest you in the in the classroom would if you talk to the young man maybe he or she can help you and you'll be surprised once we unpack is there and kids get to know one another we've  we have that's a great success story it is we have all the time in the school you know millet school there's a problem toward in school they become best friends because we take them out of the school setting we take them into the private sector and let them interact outside of lightening information so if you have just one more tip if you are a parent and you suspect that your child people because that's sixty four percent is a very disturbing number to me of what goes unreported give us one more thing if pet you're a parent i'm a parent what something else we should be saying to our kids perhaps daily one thing she said you kids daily every day is that if there's a problem you can always talk to me about it and if there's a problem we're going to resolve it i'm going to resolve it w when you always have dial keys know what's going on in your kid's life all the time all the time especially at the middle school that's great thank you so much bobbie all the players for an extremely important and thank you for the great work you're doing with the kids at school they're so fortunate to have you thank you thank you this is a problem we're so grateful to address and so we can curb this humongous epidemic greece was one of the special students that make you feel proud to be a teacher she was kind of curious about the world i knew something was wrong pretty early on welcome back to start my crisis i'm your host vivian gas far and we're here to continue the epidemic of bullying and how we can help the victims understand that there are alternatives it can stop and it will get better here  us today is tearing abraham's a marriage and family therapist for the over ten years experience terrence main focus is helping families and children overcome life's obstacles welcome town chris rock jennifer lawrence these are just a few examples of a list celebrities that have come forward and if admitted to experiencing bullying as a child in fact chris rock is actually spoken about this that if it wasn't for his bullying he would have developed his wit and humor so i bring that up because we all have personal a lot of us have personal stories especially celebrities an interesting fact one out of three children in the united states admits to experiencing some form of bullying in school in school now how has that of volved with the onset of social media with nearly every child from middle school and age  has a cellphone when used them always connected to the world through text and social media has that changed well it definitely complicates the situation in the past bullying what happened in school my child would go home and it would be done for the day and then they would have peace of mind unfortunately with social media there is a multitude of ways that the bully can attack the victim and it is it's important to understand this month many different types of bullying the most common is verbal and social but cyber bullying is unfortunately on the rise what is cyber bullying and let's take a step back sure let's define the actual word what versus yes being called me exactly what he's going to be right so bellying actually it's interesting it wasn't until two thousand and fourteen that the center of for disease control and the department of education teamed  created a federal official dutch excuse me definition of bullying and they describe it is it in there needs to be three components there needs to be aggressive behavior there needs to be an imbalance of power and there needs to be repetition if those three components are in play then that is a situation of bullying what qualifies as repetition how many instances short i would say more than a few more than a  few you know if something happens once or twice we can easily define that as maybe just picking on them certainly not justifying but to really fully properly define bullying it's more of a chronic occurrence it's more of a regular occurrence if you will cyber bullying going back to your original question is using electronics in technology so for instance sending a text message sending a threat over a text message or posting a something on facebook or instagram or snap chat are some of the most common social media websites simply posting things on the web using those mediums that is exactly what cyberbullying is and the question really becomes what do we do about that what do we do about cyber bullying and the first thing is this is really critical what really drives someone to bully these are typically very and secure children these are typically children that don't have power at home perhaps they're being bullied in their home we have found over the course of years and studying and research this that this is learned behavior so they learn it from other typically at school or it can be abused at home absolutely usually this stems from the home and so cyberbullying it's really important when you're addressing cyber bullying that you don't give the bully power how do you remove the power from the bully you don't respond to the text you take pictures and you document that it's critical you document everything you receive you take a snapshot of what you see on facebook or instagram but the key to this is to not feed the bully by giving them power and you give them power by showing them emotion by showing the you're upset now a many adults now who may have watching who both are parents and they look back on their own childhood saying i was teased in school it's not so bad i got through it what's the problem how has society evolved where this is now an epidemic i mean unfortunately my friend my son's friends mother told me just three days ago that a child in her community a twelve year old sixth grade girl her parents just found her hanging she hung herself because she was the victim of bullying what has gotten these children to the point of hanging themselves because they can't take it where there's so many people in our age group that just don't get that oh i just got picked on in school what happened when change well i think a big change is the fact that we do have the internet and there are many different mediums and ways that unfortunately bullies can attack their victims you know i think it's always been around i just think we now have better language to talk about it and i think it's just really critical that we don't ignore it it's true because i was told that this child this twelve year old girl she had reported her bully to the school but then she did found that it wasn't enough and what happened is that the perp the kid that was bowling her got even angrier that she was the it was also a girl that was reported story and she then threatened this girl and said you know you're so horrible you should just kill yourself kill yourself and unfortunately she did why would someone a child give so much power by listening is there a way that we can strengthen our children to be more resilient to not listen to things of that nature of course of course i think it starts with the parents i mean it's really important that we give our children that ability to have that dialogue it's critical that as parents we don't judge our children you know it's interesting we've all been children at one point we all have different personalities how i would handle a situation may be different from how my child may handle a situation i may be more bold to confront my bully when my child perhaps or your child may be a little bit more shy or reserved so it's really important that we give them the ability to talk about it and not minimize it i think also too we as parents we sometimes fall into that trap of other kids just being kids well when i was younger age to me i describe with thick skin don't l you let it get off your back sure and the other children more sensitive now that you're unable to do this is an app you know i don't think so i just think it's important that we give our children the ability to talk about it and as parents we have to recognize when it's when it's not an issue and when it's becoming an issue so the real question is what are parents looking for what should parents look for in right so what are some signs so if you're we all hope and wish that our children if they're having an issue would school they would come home and talk about it with us but the reality is sometimes they don't have the confidence to do that they're embarrassed to talk about it so we as parents need to be tuned in so perhaps if your child is coming home and they have tattered ripped clothing if they have missing jewelry or belongings that they you know they went to school with if your children come to your child comes home and they're starving and they're hungry perhaps they didn't get to eat their lunch because it was taken from them you know if your child is showing signs of depression anxiety they're starting to withdraw they're not hanging out with their friends or perhaps they don't have friends those are all red flags if they're having trouble sleeping if they lose interest in activities they used to enjoy rats maybe they're being more clean their parents yeah used to be absolutely clear and to add to that if your child is complaining about not wanting to go to school all all of a sudden they're complaining about they're symptomatic they have you know they don't feel well their stomach or stomach issues is actually the most common complaint because usually anxiety up in the gut so if a child is is stressed out a lot of times if they're going to compete if they're complaining about got issues it's a lot of times it has to do with emotional and i know so many people who are watching thinking it's not my child this is a real mean in addition to the fact that i just heard because obviously that's very extreme when a child of twelve years old takes their own life externally child of any age sure but twelve years  just seems so young to even contemplate such a thing but unfortunately i know more i mean in my personal life one of my closest friends their child is such a victim of bullying their child didn't end up refusing to go to school and they had to be homeschooled and then effectively will be changing schools because of being bullied to such an extent to terror and now they have p t s d and of course right did you see clients who had p t s d all of borers of course i mean it makes it takes an emotional toll and it's important that children have an ability to talk about it because on for can carry that into our ears to we're not going to go into that today but bullying happens in not just the schools and not just with children so it's really important to the child teach them coping skills and learn how to deal with it in a healthy manner can you give us an example of a coping skill that's very easy to implement sure meditation deep breathing i think that's critical being teaching your child problem solving skills being able to take a step back tone down your emotion and think about strategies on how to handle the situation those are skills that it's imperative that they learn young in life so they can take that into their adulthood it's interesting the question really becomes what does a child do what a pair it's too if if their child is being bullied the first thing i suggest is for parents to make sure they document it's really important that they document everything that goes on keep a log if you have to you know document date time who was involved what was the resolution what was the outcome and i would strongly suggest if it is or strew case of bullying and you have those three components that we discussed earlier it would be great for the parent to set up a live meeting with the principal at the school and a couple of tips with that and speaking from experience as a mother we sweet tend to get very emotional when when our children are involved so it's really important as a parent to scale down the emotion when you're talking to your principal to really weigh in on the facts as opposed to the emotion we want our schools o side so we want to make sure that we align with them and that we don't blame the schools oftentimes as parents we we want to place blame we want to we're angry right but what if you find that your school administration is not acting as responsive as you would like them to if what if they do an investigation now first of all is there a department at a school that would do such an investigation well every school has a harassment policy right so that i would i would encourage every parent that's in this position situation to get a copy of the harassment policy is that yes yasser intimidation billing department has a chair absolutely but each school system has their own set of policies and regulations so i as a parent i would suggest getting a copy of that and real over it because perhaps the bully has violated the policy and right then and there you have a reason to act if you don't feel supported by your school i would encourage you taking it to a higher level there are so many resources online there are so many governmental websites that you can go to in your state so there is there is a lot of resources and support out there for the parents well we've covered what the parents should do right as we wrap up could you please just let us know two things a parent should not sure do not try to deal with it on your own situation and what are we really teaching our children right so i think it's critical to involve the school and the other thing is and this is important to we want to help our children it's important not to force them to talk ok they will talk when they're ready you provide them with the opportunities to talk you bring it up at every every possible moment but you know if they're not ready to talk that's ok too so perhaps school counsellor a therapist  trusted close family friend would be a good support system for them to talk to it's sensitive information child thank you so much for their knowledge because unfortunately bulling is becoming an epidemic it has to be stopped and you must as a parent learn how to deal with it it is regular stereotypical billing that is also blossomed unfortunately into cyber bullying which goes from social media to texting and this can not be