Settle for No More Bullying, Harassment or Abuse!: Parents and students will learn how to prevent or stop bullying instantly

Settle for No More Bullying, Harassment or Abuse!

Copyright © 2019 by Marsha Luginbuehl

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN (Print): 978-1-54398-514-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-54398-515-3

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Comments to Parents about the People in this Book

Warning to Parents about the Contents

1 Mission: Reduce the High Rate of Bullying, Harassment & Abuse

2 Statistical Evidence of Extensive Bullying in Our Schools and Its Consequences

3 Preventing Someone from Become a Bully: Their Problems & Needs

4 Bully-Proofing Your Child to Prevent Victimization

Anti-Bully and Anti-Victim Questionnaire

5 Equipping Your Child with a Knight’s Armor of Protection

6 The Magic Formula to Stop the Bully’s Word Attacks!

7 Dealing with Cyberbullying and Cyber-Harassment

8 Danger on Some of Our School Campuses and Why

9 Securing a Safe and Supportive School Climate for All Students and Schools

10 Preventing or Ending Sexual or Physical Abuse at School, in Relationships and in Marriage

Happy Relationship Questionnaire

11 Let’s Rally the Troops!

About the Author and Illustrator

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my three children, Nicole, Matt, and Kellie and in-law children, Darren, Christina and Michael, who have suffered from bullying or other mistreatment and persevered with courage throughout it all. You have managed to overcome your maltreatment, and in spite of it, you show kindness and respect to all.

I also dedicate this book to my 20 grandchildren with the hope that the citizens of our country will become more gentle and kind-hearted so you can grow up in a nation free of most bullying, harassment and abuse. If not, this book is written especially so you will know how to stand up successfully and bravely to any tormentors that come your way. I also encourage you to rally around any youth who are being bullied and encircle them with protection and acceptance.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

- Edmund Burke (1730-1897), Irish statesman, author, orator, philosopher, & Member of Parliament

Love Eternally,

Mom / Grammy

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I am truly grateful to my dear husband, Peter, who has supported me whole-heartedly in all of my endeavors throughout life. You first sustained me in becoming a thrilled mother and grandmother, a devoted school psychologist, and you have also been there with me as I wrote this book about bullying, harassment and abuse. Thank you Peter for NEVER doubting me when there were many good reasons to doubt!

I am also thankful to the many students throughout my career who taught me about the challenges and pain of being a victim or a bully. You are my HEROES – Never give up!

I am very grateful for the talented illustrator of this book, Val Chadwick Bagley, who stopped other projects he was working on to do these illustrations that help this book come alive for youth. All of the illustrations except a few have been completed by Val. The remaining few were created by me because I needed a few more illustrations of multi-cultural students and Val was busy with another project. Unfortunately my illustrations have their artistic limitations!

Finally I would like to express my deep gratitude to the wonderful ladies who read through parts or all of this book and helped me smooth out some of the rough edges and make it more enjoyable to read: A special thanks to:

Thank You Everyone!

It Takes A Village...

Dr. Marsha

Comments to Parents about the People in this Book

I will share many stories about real-life people who were either the bullies or the bullied, the harassed, assaulted or abused. All of the people are real-life bullies or their victims who have suffered tremendously along with their families. The people with real names have been reported in the national news so their names are already public information. Most of the victims’ families have given their children’s names to the media hoping that their stories can awaken us to the brutal devastation caused by bullies so we will stand up for the persecuted. I personally thank these families for their bravery in coming forward with their heartrending stories.

Readers may wonder why some victims or bullies are given a fabricated name. The people with fake names were counseled by me, Dr. Marsha Luginbuehl, and I must abide by the ethics of ‘confidentiality’ and cannot reveal identifying information. Still, their stories are painfully real.

Warning to Parents about the Contents

This book has been written mainly for parents and teachers to help their children and teens. Parts of it are written for children and adolescents to read together with their parents. Parents should not hand their children this book and tell them to read it alone. There are sections that are explicitly for readers 16 years old and older due to some upsetting stories about bullies and their targets. I suggest that parents read each chapter first, and highlight the sections they think would be beneficial to read together with their children. Children will need their parent’s help to practice and master some of the skills in this book.

I Wish Parents Great Success in Raising Loving, Empathic and Courageous Children — It is the Hardest Job in the World, but it has Fantastic Benefits!

- Dr. Marsha Luginbuehl. –

Mission: Reduce the High Rate of Bullying, Harassment & Abuse

Chapter One

I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

-Christopher Reeves, Superman actor, director, producer, writer & lobbyist

Introduction

This book is dedicated to all of our heroes especially the targets and victims who did not have the knowledge or skills at the time to stop bullying, harassment, assaults or abuse from happening. Nevertheless, many of them dug deep within themselves to endure these attacks and overcome tremendous heartache, humiliation and/or other injuries caused by callous classmates, a dangerous boyfriend, an abusive spouse or parent, or a molesting boss. Our heartfelt love goes out to the millions of females, especially girls and young women, who were sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or date raped by a ruthless aggressor. Our voices sing out in sorrow to all those innocent, hopeful children and youth, lovesick adolescents, young adults, and trusting women who were actually ‘bullied to death’! This book is written for all of you, especially for those of you who are presently enduring some of these intimidations, shame, and pain. Please don’t give up because this book has been written to help rescue you from your tormentor(s)!

The mission of this book is to decrease the human suffering of many vulnerable Americans; yes, it is probably millions! Often our political leaders worry justifiably about our enemies abroad doing some evil act to hurt us. However, there are many right here among us wreaking havoc with our children, youth and young women – especially with their emotions, minds, bodies and futures.

The high frequency and severity of bullying, harassment and abuse is becoming more and more common in today’s culture. Throughout this book appalling statistics will be presented from highly reliable government agencies like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Education Association (NEA).

Many adults don’t realize or acknowledge it, but the bullies and abusers are just about everywhere and could be anyone; they are any gender and any age, from preschool children to 80-year-old retirees; from sharp-tongued, insensitive schoolgirls to cunning adolescent boys and predatory men; from the unemployed to blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals; from co-workers to managers and CEOs; they include all races, all ethnicities, and all socio-economic classes; they come from poor neighborhoods with shacks and trailers, as well as elite neighborhoods with mansions; they are scattered from the East Coast through the Midwest to the West Coast and from North to South; they attend ritzy private schools, peaceful rural schools, yuppie suburban schools and dilapidated inner city schools; they frequent after-school activities, local nightclubs, beaches, sports events and malls; the attacks occur at school, during recreational pursuits, while laboring in the workplace, or seeking refuge at home. Because of an increase in intimidating, insensitive behaviors, bullying, assaults, abuse, and sometimes even murder are invading all walks of our lives, even in the places we assume are totally safe the schools, universities, vocational-tech centers, and sometimes the homes - we trust these places with our most precious gifts on Earth Our Children, our Youth and our Young Women, but do we need to be preparing our children with better survival and resiliency skills for these places?

How bad are these problems?

The national statistics provide evidence that hurtful insults and attacks mentioned above infuse our society at a rate above epidemic proportions and most parents and many professionals don’t realize how widespread it is. These statements sound like an exaggeration, but disturbing statistics gathered by our most reputable government agencies will be presented about bullying, sexual harassment, abuse and even murder rates inflicted upon our students and young women.

These statistics are available to the public, but most parents are not aware of many of these statistics. They are usually not published in bold print in our newspapers or on Internet news outlets, maybe for fear of what parents might do if they discovered these statistics about the ruthless bullying and assaults occurring to their innocent children! Our daughters are under attack more than our sons, but it is also challenging for many of our sons.

Our children and their parents need to be prepared to reduce or stop the relentless bullying and attacks happening too often in the schools, school-related activities, out in the community or on an electronic device in the home. Our sons and daughters will remain easy targets until everyone makes it their personal mission to get informed and stop the insensitive comments and pervasive attacks occurring to our youth. The mission of this book is to inform parents, students, school staffs and young women how they can stop much of this barrage of bullying, harassment, assaults, and even date rapes in our society.

As the brave heroes on United Flight 93 declared Let’s Roll that fateful day on September 11th, 2001, so must we! The passengers on United Flight 93 probably saved our White House or our Capitol Building by taking immediate actions when they realized our country was being attacked by terrorists. Today an upsettingly high percentage of our youth are living in challenging situations and are often unaware of their looming dangers. This is partially due to the fact that too few people are talking about the cruel bullying, sexual pressures and harmful assaults that millions of innocent youth are experiencing.

It appears that many administrators in our U.S. schools and in our top government agencies are aware of these problems, but are they talking candidly to parents about these problems? Maybe they fear that parents would panic if the true statistics were widely publicized. If parents aren’t aware of the statistics that reveal the state of their children’s affairs, then many of these statistics from reputable agencies will be exposed in this book. This is not done to instill fear, panic or blame, but to help parents realize that there are specific skills they have to teach their children and teens to make them bully-, harassment-, and abuse resistant in our society today. It is similar to teaching our children to look both ways before crossing a street to keep them safe; never to instill panic or fear. These skills will impart to them confidence and knowledge by teaching them how to prevent or stop mistreatment of many kinds quickly and safely while maintaining respect.

Parents and educators will learn how they can take immediate actions to protect their innocent children and teens from verbal or physical mistreatment that can have lifelong damaging consequences. School staffs can learn how to stop much of the bullying occurring in their schools, even the assaults by the hardcore bullies. Girls and young women will learn to recognize some of the critical red flags of warning that a guy is toxic, and also learn many strategies to help protect themselves from being controlled, assaulted or raped. This book will help arm our most vulnerable youth with the knowledge and skills to prevent or stop many types of harm from occurring to them.

Why do I care about this mission?

Two years ago I was reading the book, Settle for More, by Megyn Kelly, who was a former Fox News anchor at the time of her publication and afterwards a host of NBC’s Megyn Kelly Today. Megyn wrote a moving chapter about how she was brutally bullied in middle school due to struggling with acne and being slightly overweight. She reported that this bullying had a significant impact on her behaviors and relationships throughout her adolescent and adult life.

As I read her heartfelt story about this bullying, I thought to myself, Yes, bullying can have a devastating influence on our innocent young, sometimes even to the point of suicide or murder! I also thought that if someone as strong and confident as Megyn Kelly, who came from a very supportive home environment, could be viciously bullied for an entire school year, just imagine what it can do to students who already suffer from low self-esteem or difficult circumstances. There was one significant fact that Megyn didn’t mention: The incidence rate and severity of bullying, harassment, and assaults have increased considerably since she was a student years ago.

Let me explain how I became involved in working with children, youth and women struggling with these issues. My first real awareness of the agonizing pain that bullying and harassment can cause hit me full force when my small country school located in a serene farming community in Kansas was consolidated. I had to go to a junior high school in town without any of my school friends of six years accompanying me. They were routed to another school district!

Although I was unhappy about leaving my friends, I wasn’t super anxious about my future social life because I didn’t know anything other than a normal social life with quite a few friends throughout my childhood. My country school had only had about 90 students so we were fairly close-knit and friendly with each other. I had never experienced mean-spirited bullying.

During the first week at my new school (class-size of about 220 students; school size of about 650 students), I was walking around in a fog trying to find my classes on time and get my locker opened. After a few days, I knew where my classes were, and one girl named Cindy was very kind to me, so things were improving in the social kingdom dubbed ‘awkward adolescence’!

All was well until this good-looking, super conceded guy who I will refer to as Wes suddenly started getting in my face and insulting me. He would call me all types of mean and degrading names (e.g., stupid witch, freckled-face country hick, freak show, and many four-letter names that I won’t put into print, but you get the picture!).

I tried my best to ignore Wes without success. He would suddenly appear in the halls almost every day and go into his drama king theatrics, yelling names at me loudly, and making me feel like the local freak show! Sometimes he would stick his fingers down his throat and making a gaging sound as he told me I was so ugly that it made him gag to look at me. His buddies would laugh, which only egged him on with more humiliating jabs. I was speechless, not knowing what to do about such cruelty. Most kids getting bullied have a similar reaction, which often emboldens the bullies to continue and even get nastier! My attempts to ignore Wes were falling flat!

Just about the time I thought things couldn’t get any worse, a girl, which I’ll call Jenny, decided to target me also. She was very cute, self-confident, mouthy, and ran with a popular group of girls. As I walked to one of my classes, she would nudge her friends and start saying things like, Look girls, here comes the lesbian (which I wasn’t!), but she made up false stories to try to convince everyone I was!

She soon had a dozen girls laughing at me as I walked down the halls. I felt trapped wherever I went in the school and fearful because there was often one of these two bullies making my life miserable, and their friends were enjoying every minute of it at my expense! I was so mortified that there was no way I was going to tell my parents about it (the typical reaction of many students).

I often wondered at these painful times, why doesn’t some of the teachers stand out in the hallways near the lockers to put a stop to these big-mouthed bullies? I will discuss how teachers can do many things to decrease some of the bullying in later chapters.

My only saving grace was my new friend, Cindy, who would talk to me in the classes we had together. She started introducing me to some of her friends that she knew from her elementary years. I don’t think they saw or heard many of the mean insults directed at me because Wes and Jenny usually attacked me when I was alone (a critical factor that will be discussed in chapter five). Thank goodness Cindy’s friends were very kind-hearted, thoughtful, and fun. They didn’t worry about popularity, appearance, power or controlling others; they just accepted people for who they were. After about a month, they started including me in their group at lunchtime, in after-school activities, and eventually their slumber parties on Friday nights.

Wes and Jenny kept up their offensive verbal bombardments and humiliating gestures for most of that school year in spite of my desperate attempts to ignore them and make them magically disappear. To this day I get annoyed with adults who are constantly telling their kids or students to ignore teasing and bullying – it often takes many months to work if it works at all! You will learn more effective and quicker solutions to stop bullying in this book.

Wes and Jenny’s incessant bullying affected my ability to concentrate in school. I spent half of every class planning how I might avoid them when the bell rang. When considering my 21 years of schooling to obtain my doctorate degree, I made my lowest grades ever in that year of junior high. Bullying not only affects students socially, but it often takes a heavy academic toll.

I don’t know if it was the support of Cindy and her group or Wes and Jenny just getting bored with me because I had not reacted to their insults for almost the entire year, but finally they stopped! This termination of the bullying was one of the biggest reliefs of my lifetime! So that was my introduction to bullying and its agonizing pain and debilitating humiliation. However, that experience probably helped me to develop more compassion and a sincere desire to help those who are bullied and harassed after knowing firsthand the embarrassment and desperation of being the target or the victim. It was a key influence in my life, later motivating me to major in psychology.

Life is very interesting . . . In the end, Some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.

- Drew Barrymore, American actress

I have been a school psychologist working in four school districts in two different states and many schools ranging from pre-schools through high schools. I have also had a private practice simultaneously. My experiences have come in both large and small school districts. After about 20 years in a large school district, I decided to accept a job in a peaceful ranching community in the Rocky Mountains. It was a beautiful area with wholesome, friendly people. I was assigned to a small rural elementary and then a middle school, each with approximately 300-380 students. When I was first given this assignment I thought, this will be easy! It is small schools within a peaceful community, and 75% of our students come from strong farming or religious families.

However, only a few months into my middle school assignment, I realized I had some misconceptions about counseling needs for this age group. While it was true that the majority of these students were coming from wholesome families and rarely needed counseling, if they did, it was often because they were being bullied by some of the other 25%!

I spent almost 50% of my time counseling students with re-occurring problems that often seemed to be connected to bullying issues. In spite of the fact that our staff was very good at monitoring and preventing a lot of the bullying, the bullying still occurred too frequently at this wonderful school. I say wonderful because our students attained very high test scores on annual state and national standardized testing. The school has won many awards for excellence and has caring, outstanding teachers and paraprofessionals, easily accessible administrators, and a friendly front office staff. So, why did all of this bullying exist?

In spite of these middle school teachers doing many of the right things to squelch bullying, many bullies are very cunning and sneaky. This is true of bullies nationwide! Many make sure no teachers are around or within hearing range when they attack their targets. Later I will not only be discussing school strategies and policies in a later chapter to stop many of these sneaky bullies, but in chapter six I will teach parents and students what they have to do to stop the shrewd verbal teasing, insults and written notes that most teachers don’t see. At the present time, most students are not being taught effective skills by parents to stop bullying quickly, effectively and safely.

In an average school district, bullying issues range from mild teasing and mean notes stuck through locker slots, to more severe issues of beating up students, spreading cruel rumors to trash girls’ reputations, ostracism of students, girls being pressured to perform oral sex on boys at the back of the school bus, boys texting out nude photos of girls to the entire school district, threats to blow up the school, some incidents of sexual assaults and rape, and some students caught bringing a weapon into school. I counseled my students in both the large and small school districts for many of those reasons and others. I also counseled about 6 students a year who were considering suicide because they had reached a Breaking Point where they couldn’t stand the bullying much longer. Thankfully I never lost a student to suicide, which is pretty rare for a school psychologist.

These suicidal students often reported that it was the verbal insults or cyberbullying that was taking its toll on them. I hate it when adults say, It is just some teasing and insults; it’s no big deal. Some students suffer relentless verbal torment for many months and it is a very big deal!

Physical bullying (hitting, shoving, kicking, etc.) is often reported and these bullies usually receive some disciplinary consequences from administrators. They don’t like this discipline, so it sometimes deters them in the future. The verbal and cyberbullying is too often ignored and can continue relentlessly for months or years, which can eat away at self-esteem and produce hopelessness, depression and desperation: two of the main reasons students commit suicide.

If you haven’t sat beside a student who is shaking fiercely and pouring out his or her heart to you in between painful sobs, telling about students who are constantly announcing in a loud voice how ugly, stupid, or fat he or she is, then you have no idea how viciously this harassment penetrates our youths’ psyche when it goes on month after month. Imagine what it is like when this student finishes the story, and then tells you that the bully said s/he should go kill her/himself so no one has to look at her disgusting face anymore – and then this student tells you between distraught sobs that this is exactly what she is going to do: KILL HERSELF! It is heart-wrenching!

I have had several cases like this over the years, but the one that affected me to the point I said, That’s enough! I have to discover some better solutions to help these victims, was the second closest call I ever had to losing a student to suicide. Toward the end of one day when the students were ready to be dismissed to go home, I had two girls come bursting into my office in a panic and tell me that their friend, which I will call Melinda, told them she was going home to kill herself that night, and she wasn’t joking! They said she was really upset and seemed determined.

I knew this girl well who they were reporting, and I knew she said exactly what she thought and never dramatized her feelings. I suddenly had this alarm going off in my head with a deafening warning signal telling me that it was critical to reach this girl before she got on the bus!

Right then the bell rang for students to go home, and it was the typical middle school madhouse of students scrambling to their lockers and buses. When I checked Melinda’s classroom, she was gone. When I found out where her locker was, she was not there either. I made a mad dash for the buses, but I had no idea which one she rode and the buses were ready to depart! Finally one student showed me her bus. Right before the buses departed, I reached her and got her off the bus!

Melinda started protesting that she couldn’t talk to me because her bus was leaving and she demanded to get back on the bus! I told her not to worry because I would drive her home if necessary (20+ miles one way and I had no permission to drive her home!). She kept protesting, so I told her that leaving on the bus was not an option. I guided her into my office in spite of her strong protests and extreme irritation with me. Not only was I very concerned for her safety, but I knew I was going to get an angry phone call from her mother if this turned out to be a false alarm!

After I was able to get distraught Melinda into my office, I positioned myself in front of the door so she couldn’t bolt. If you have a teen, you can easily picture Melinda glaring and rolling her eyes at me as she grumbled loudly, Ugh, I can’t believe you just did that. This is so irritating!

After I reassured Melinda that she would get home soon, I told her that some girls who really cared about her had reported that she was planning to go home and kill herself that evening. This girl, who was not very emotional, broke down crying! After consoling her awhile, she confided that this was exactly her plan because of cruel bullying she couldn’t stand any longer.

Melinda was being bullied because she had a slightly pointy nose, so the bullies were calling her names like bird beak, ugly bird or Pinocchio. Melinda definitely didn’t look even close to those insulting names that her tormentors used. Bullies will often take our slightest flaws and exaggerate them into something terrible to hurt others. She had a fun, spunky character and personality that many of her friends and I admired. She definitely wasn’t a loser by any definition.

Melinda shakily told me that her plan was to wait until after dark and go out to the highway by her house. She was going to lay down in the middle of one lane right below the top of the hill, then it would be too late for the driver to see her and stop when he came zooming over the hill! I knew where she lived and could visualize this hill, and her plan probably would have worked!

I calmly comforted her until she stopped crying and shaking. She then told me, Dr. L., I really don’t want to die, but I can’t take the hurtful insults any longer. I told her that I understood her feelings and frustration, but I knew we could resolve her problems fairly quickly if she would promise to give me a chance to work with her and her bullies for a couple months. She agreed to this because the truth is that no one wants to die if they have hope for a solution!

I had Melinda’s mother come get her that afternoon. I helped the mother set up outside counseling for Melinda, as well as meet with me weekly. I met with Melinda’s teachers and asked them to give her extra support and to monitor the interactions between Melinda her bullies. The principal also talked to her tormentors and had a positive impact on them. I started working with Melinda on some anti-bullying strategies that will be discussed later, and I also counseled her bullies. Within a few weeks, the issues were resolved and she no longer wanted to take her life!

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

- Phil Donahue,

American Television Entertainer in the 1960’s and ‘70’s

As Melinda and her mother left my office, I was furious with the girls who almost drove Melinda to killing herself over such shallow issues, and I was frazzled thinking about what might have happened if I had decided to wait until the next day to contact Melinda! What if her bus had left before I reached her? Would I have driven 20 miles to her house and 20 miles back again to make sure she was safe? Possibly not! The next morning might have been too late!

I determined never again to come that close to losing one of my students. I knew I had to find better solutions to these issues. I laid awake late at night contemplating solutions and reading materials about preventing bullying. I had already tried many things that were suggested by some of the experts with limited success. After much searching and trials, I found some great strategies and skills that can help most of the victims stop verbal or written forms of bullying. Almost all bullying, even physical assaults, begins with verbal or written insults. Hence, it is crucial for students to stop the first verbal insults flung by bullies before it escalates in frequency and severity. I will also present many school interventions being used by excellent schools that can deter the school bullies, even the hardcore bullies. I also discovered some counseling approaches that seem to help our repeat bullies develop more empathy for others and cope with some of the reasons they were bullying others. Having worked with victims of sexual harassment and sexual assaults, I will share some helpful tips to safe-guard our teens and young women. Lastly, I learned many parenting skills over the years that will prevent parents from raising a bully or a student likely to be targeted.

Summarizing, many of our youth are trying to survive a cruel, uncivilized war of words, and sometimes even physical assaults that are wearing down some of our most vulnerable citizens! Most of this book will help parents and students, maybe even some educators, work together to end much of this bullying, harassment and abuse occurring in our society. Then we can say to our children in a decade: Growing up used to be kind of risky to your safety and welfare, but we eliminated many of those problems so that you have more safety, happiness and future success!

Please do not feel disheartened by my comments in this chapter or the statistics in the next. Hundreds of solutions will be revealed that can change our present culture from overly aggressive and sometimes oppressive into a culture of more kindness and safety for our youth. This is the mission of this book. It is not just a dream, but together with your help, we can make it a reality!

I now challenge all readers of this book to do the same as the Heroes of United Flight 93:

Let’s Roll!

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

-Harriet Tubman, African American activist, born 1820-1913

Statistical Evidence of Extensive Bullying in Our Schools and Its Consequences

Chapter Two

You will never reach higher ground if you are always pushing others down.

- Jeffrey Benjamin, founder of Breakthrough Training, which helps people achieve their goals

I will ask parents, How safe are students in our schools and communities? How safe is Your Child or Teen? The answer about safety in our schools and communities varies depending on who you ask, when you ask, and how you ask. If you were to look at an article on the website of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) entitled School Violence and Prevention, the author makes the comment, All schools work to prevent school violence and schools are very safe places. The first half of that statement is true, but is the last half of this statement really true? This article was referring to safety from school shootings. However, this article was written before the deluge of school shootings in 2013 through 2019.

As a member of NASP for three decades, I would agree that all school psychologists, administrators, and educators nationwide are engaged in an effort to prevent school shootings from occurring. Also the Indicators of School Crime and Safety (2012) stated that although some widely-broadcast school shootings may have been triggered by a history of peer abuse, they are rare events. Dr. Peter Langman, Ph.D., an expert on the psychology of the school shooter, stated in 2014: Peer harassment is extraordinarily common; school shootings are extraordinarily rare. However, the rate of school shootings has risen significantly over the last three decades as the statistics in chapter eight will prove. Besides, even a few shootings are terrible for the victims!

Parents and teachers also must consider safety in terms of bullying, harassment, and various forms of physical assaults and abuse in the schools and their consequences. If they would know the upcoming statistics, many experts would probably state that our schools are not safe at all when considering all of these aggressive acts.

On the 2017 website of the American Psychological Association (APA), it stated, Bullying at school is an unfortunately common phenomenon and could affect students’ well-being, as well as social and academic achievement, in the long run (Graham, 2017). Dr. Philip Lazarus, Ph.D., and former president of NASP is an expert on