Young people know what bullying is because they see and hear it everyday; there is no denying its impact or damage! Many adults are often in denial when faced with having a child who is being a bully. Whenever you tease someone, scare them or just make their lives more difficult, you are being a bully. The person being bullied often has a hard time defending him or herself and because of this will often appear to have been equally causing the incident. Bullying is most often repetitive and constant, but it can also just be a one-time incident that harms someone for a lifetime. Examples of bullying behaviour include:

• Pointing out physical flaws or differences
• Laughing at people who have physical challenges
• Punching, shoving, pushing and other acts that hurt people physically
• Spreading bad rumours about people both in person and on-line
• Forming groups and then keeping certain people out of the "group"
• Teasing, taunting and ridiculing people in a mean and malicious manner
• Getting certain people to "gang up" on others to show more force

On-line or electronic bullying, now more commonly known as cyber bullying, is when children or teens bully each other using the Internet, mobile phones or other cyber technology. This behaviour is not restricted to teens and can often be found within young adult and even adult circles. These behaviours can include:

• Sending hurtful and mean text, e-mail, or instant messages;
• Posting inappropriate pictures or messages about others in blogs or on Web sites;
• Using someone else's user name to spread rumours or lies about someone.
• Taunting and teasing someone within a "chat room" environment
• Spreading personal and private information about a person who would otherwise wish that information to remain private.

Unfortunately, not everyone takes bullying seriously, including adults, which is one reason we have formed this foundation. By continuing to place these issues in the forefront of people's minds, we can only hope to begin to affect the paradigm shift in thinking that must occur before 'critical mass' is effective enough to stop this horrible 'right of passage'! Bullying is wrong and it destroys lives!! Do you get it?

When Brandon took his own life at the age of 14 after 8 years of bullying and teasing by his peers, many people continued to stay in denial that anything could possibly be wrong in their community. If we are to ever make a difference, people have to wake up, put a stop to this evil and destructive behaviour and encourage a shift in thinking from "we did all we could" to "what else could we have done?" Only then will we be able to say we are doing all we can to stop this from happening ever again!

	Anti-Bullying Links Please visit some of these great bullying-related websites: www.bullying.org www.bullyonline.org www.jaredstory.com www.cyberbullying.org www.thefieldfoundation.org www.bullycide.org www.ryanpatrickhalligan.org www.bullybeware.com http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bullying http://www.bullyingcanada.ca

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• Bullying
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• Neurofibromatosis