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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Is Your Kid A Bully?

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Thursday, June 28, 2012   

PHOENIX - Arizona parents who have seen the YouTube video of seventh-grade boys harassing a 68-year-old school bus monitor may wonder if their children could do such a thing.

Christy Buck, director of the Mental Health Foundation, says parents who don't want their children to turn into bullies need to help them understand that bullying can be deadly.

"Even the strongest-willed, athletic, super person at a school could possibly have the predisposition for depression and ultimately something that somebody says or how they're treated, that person can go take their life."

Buck runs a program in schools that raises awareness about depression and bullying to prevent incidents such as the one in New York. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 26 percent of American high school students struggle with depression, and nearly 14 percent of students have seriously considered suicide.

Buck says studies show that 80 percent of students would never bully another student. However, she adds:

"There are a boatload of kids that, they just don't want to be mean. They stand by and watch it, but they don't know what to do."

The "Be Nice" program teaches students about mental health. When she presents it in schools, Buck says, she is blunt about telling students that reporting or getting up the courage to confront a bully actually could prevent a suicide.

"By leaving after a day of school and actually having been nice to someone who is treated poorly all the time, and maybe over the weekend that person contemplated killing themselves. Imagine going back Monday morning and you actually saved that kid's life."

Buck's advice to Arizona parents: If children are old enough to handle the profanity in the video, use it as a teaching tool to discuss how harmful bullying can be to everyone. The victim has received more than $550,000 from sympathetic donors. The bullies have become victims themselves, getting threatening e-mails and phone calls. The victim has asked that they not be prosecuted.


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