The ultimate remedy for teenage bullying

Teenage bullying is one of the most traumatic and damaging situations for our youngsters in the country. We've assembled some invaluable reading for you below. Click on any link to read the individual articles and materials.

Shouldn't your school district know about this...?

A Program To Help You Deal Effectively with Teen Problems

Drug and Alcohol Use

Sexuality Issues

Parental Disrespect

Teen Pregnancy

School Pressures

Adult Disrespect

Teenage Crime

Disregard for Authority

Although they had studiously employed all the nationally recognized and certified anti-bullying programs available, six months of intense study and research convinced them of one thing:  Bullying, especially cyberbullying, arises from the teen peer culture itself and so a sociological model was needed.


Their new approach, called Sunshine and Shame, was introduced the summer before Jasper’s family moved into the affluent suburban district from sunny California after his dad, a pharmaceutical executive, was transferred.  Jasper, a smart, likeable and athletic 16-year-old knew none of this.  He practiced his usual approach to making friends and influencing peers in climbing the new social status ladder presented to him at Trackenseen High.


Approximately four months into the new school year, Jasper appeared before a Student Council tribunal to answer to charges of bullying.  He was informed of the specific charges and introduced to a student “defense attorney”.  He also immediately noticed the complainant, a tall, thin, bespectacled student who rode the same school bus as Jasper.  He was given half an hour to prepare a defense before the case was “called” before the presiding “judge”, a senior.  Five other students served as a “jury”.  Jasper was found guilty and sentenced to serve 3-6 months in the after-school Hall of Shame.  His name was also added to the school’s Wall of Shame, along with others so convicted.


To his further surprise, Jasper found the Hall, administered by two school social workers, to be full of other Trackenseen students who immediately grilled him on not only his bullying but his life experiences in general.  For the first time his charm and easy façade failed him.  His peers were persistent, relentless and thorough.  Gradually, he discovered that they, like him, had also bullied.  Slowly, Jasper learned to trust, and to reveal the deeper levels of himself to the group.


After attending daily group meetings at the Hall for over four months, Jasper petitioned the Student Council to release him.  After another withering “cross examination”, he was released from the Hall and told his name would be removed from the Wall if he kept his nose clean for another 30 days.


Six months later Jasper ran for and was elected to the Student Council.  He was almost immediately appointed to serve on the jury which would consider bullying charges against Marina, a new student from suburban Connecticut, and Miller, late of the Florida gold coast.


When we are able to follow current science, we: Understand that the teenage brain is not yet an adult brain.  Engage teenagers based on how they think rather than how we adults think.  Communicate in ways which allow us to penetrate the teen peer culture itself.  Slowly turn that culture from an absolute negative into an absolute positive.


Sunshine and Shame.  Expose offenders to the kind of ridicule and derision that only teenagers can instantly generate.  Create a climate within which secretive macho support for bullying turns into scorn and sanctions.  By the teens themselves.  Through applied sociology.

SUNSHINE and SHAME


The nearly successful suicide attempt of a fifteen-year-old finally pushed the Trackenseen School District over the edge.  


BULLYING: A Special Section

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