More and More Children are Becoming Victims of Despair…..

More and More Children are Becoming Victims of Despair…..

I am concerned and dismayed by the growing number of young people that resort to suicide as a result of bullying by their peers.  It seems to be a weekly occurrence now.  How is it that a society as advanced as ours, is failing the future generations so miserably?

As a father and as an attorney, I am concerned that we, as a community and as a country, are neglecting our children.  Unfortunately, there have always been school yard bullies.  Furthermore, children have always had to defend themselves from the older, bigger and stronger kids, etc.  Most of us were exposed, at one time or another, to the kid that tried to take our lunch money.  If you were lucky, there was a crowd around and someone willing to give you hand.

Isolation is nothing new, teenagers can throw barriers around them that may leave parents disconnected from what they are thinking, who they are hanging out with, or who they are befriending.  Let´s face it, most of us, at one time or another tried to go behind our parents back and tried to get away with this or that.  But I think this has gone up to a whole new level.  Our generation might have spent inordinate amount of time on the telephone; sometime, without our parent’s knowledge.

Forms of communication are changing very rapidly. Hot and heavy telephone conversations with a friend have been replaced by texting conversations with multiple parties, chance encounters over the internet. People seem embolden by the fast mediums of communications.  There is almost no time to think between writing a message down and pressing send.  The words written in the messages seem to acquire a life of their own remaining in cyberspace forever.

New forms of entertainment can lead to isolation. Young people are spending hours playing games and, internet surfing; they use technology that most adults cannot comprehend.  All of this creates an atmosphere of isolation that can engulf our children and separate them for their parents.

It seems to me, that the schoolyard bully has been replaced by the cyberspace bully.

Today, teenagers are far more vulnerable that we ever were to constant bullying over their cell phones and their computers. Our kids are involved in what I call solo activities which in and of themselves induce isolation and violence.  These solo activities are hard for parents to monitor.

Members of a family unit seem pulled away from one another by work and financial responsibilities that takes them away from the children, but also by their own over use of computers, games and cell phones.

Children seem to find increasing solace in the phone or computer screen.  The need to interact with people has become less important as electronic communication forms have increased.  We see this phenomenon even in the work place where people do not necessarily need to be sitting next to one another, in the same building, or in the same country for that matter to work on the same project.

As I see it, this revolutionary technology that is so useful in so many ways can also make our children more vulnerable to those who seek to hurt them Our children can become easy prey to the verbal attacks of those that will not stop their abusive behavior. Ultimately the child is so isolated and scares that he succumbs to despair and is unable to reach out for the help he needs from parents, teachers or siblings.

I am glad to see that there is increasing awareness of this terrible trend.  It is incumbent upon each of us to make sure that children find support, encouragement and help when they need it the most.

I am Martin E. Regan, Jr. and these are my personal thoughts…….