Every day there seems to be a new story about school bullying and a child whose life has become so unbearable that she resorts to some kind of drastic action.

Recently, a girl went home and hanged herself – and then a young boy of 13 from Staten Island, New York took his life after leaving a suicide note explaining whey he felt compelled to do so. It’s tragic.

But cases like this continue to happen. And every year when the new school year starts, just imagine how many children dread going back to school – all because of school bullying.

Why is school bullying increasing at such an alarming rate? And why are schools so powerless to stop it?

Ask any experienced teachers and they will tell you how discipline and respect have all but disappeared from schools. In fact, teaching has become a nightmare for many teachers because of this.

Schools today are very different from what they were a few decades ago. They are not the places of nurturing they are supposed to be – rather they have become battlegrounds where unfortunate victims of bullying have to defend themselves daily against bullies and tormentors. The sad thing is that parents are often the last to know about this.

There are many reasons why children don’t talk.

One reason is that they are so scared of the threats and possible repercussions that they are emotionally paralyzed.

Another is that they misguidedly feel guilty about being victimized. So they just suffer in silence and put up with being bullied on a daily basis until it becomes unbearable.

What makes these children’s lives even more unbearable is that their tormentors plaster their taunts all over facebook, send threatening emails and use various other forms of cyber bullying.

Can you imagine leaving the misery of school every day only to be confronted at home with ridicules and threats via the internet?

School bullying, cyber-bulling, and “bullicide” are increasing at a horrific rate worldwide. What is wrong with our society?

We have to face it – when children take their own lives there is something drastically wrong with the society that we live in. As adults and thinking people we can’t simply throw up our hands in despair. We have to do something about it.

I have tried to address the problem in a book for parents and teachers where I have presented a number of ways to tackle this scourge:

For parents and teachers:  How to tackle School Bullying