School bullying causes suicide contemplation

There was the namecalling: “Faggot,” “gay,” “retard.” There was the physical abuse, the bruises to his arms and hands.

The 13-year-old boy began to contemplate suicide.

But the bully didn’t win.

The boy told his parents before he carried through with a plan to run out in front of a fast-moving transport on Highway 11 and end the daily torment and ridicule he endured since Grade 5.

Now in Grade 8, the boy is seeing a counsellor and made the decision recently to leave his friends and start over at a new school.

“They would push me, I would walk away. They would slam my hands between the lockers. I would move faster so they wouldn’t have much of a chance to get me and they would tease me and I would just take it,” he said in a recent interview.

“It hurts, but I don’t cry because that would make it worse. I just keep everything inside.”

The boy said most of the kids at his old senior elementary school are scared of the “head bully,” who had been his classmate since Grade 5.

“They talk to him, they tell him to stop punching and teasing and that’s about it. He stops and then continues again. It happens every day, but on the good days it would only happen every second day.”

Wiping the tears from her eyes, the boy’s mother said she blames herself for not addressing the issue sooner.

She said she realized the seriousness of the situation when, during an argument about school work, her son told her he wanted to kill himself.

“I knew there was bullying in elementary school, but I thought he was dealing with it better. I thought it was just boy stuff,” she said. “All it takes is for one kid to start and then they have a reputation of being the odd man out. The other kids don’t want to be the ones being teased so they do it too.”

Const. Larry Asselin, school liaison officer with the North Bay Police Service, said bullying has become an issue that every generation can relate to.

“Parents need to take ownership. They need to teach kids values and respect,” he said, noting bullying is the worst in grades 7 and 8 and continues into high school.

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