Emily Bazelon - Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy

Ill never be able to say thank you enough to all the people who have helped me with this project. At Random House, Im grateful to Susan Kamil for understanding this project from the start, and to Tom Perry, Karen Fink, Sonya Safro, Avideh Bashirrad, Erika Greber, Kelle Ruden, Benjamin Dreyer, Nancy Delia, Sue Warga, Amelia Zalcman, and Kaela Myers for all the ideas, excellent counsel, and support along the way. Andy Ward is the book editor who isnt supposed to exist anymoreincisive, patient, responsive, and exacting in the best way. Working with him has been a privilege and pleasure. Elyse Cheney is the perfect agent: She whipped this project into shape and guided me at every step.

I owe my excellent bosses at Slate, David Plotz and Jacob Weisberg, for their wisdom and friendship and for letting me spend countless hours in South Hadley. Thank you to everyone on the Slate staffyou are wonderful colleagues. John Dickerson and Hanna Rosin are my collaborators and my rocks. At the New York Times Magazine and Slate, Ive had the great good fortune to work with two incredibly talented and generous editors, Ilena Silverman and John Swansburg. I owe the high standards I may not meet, but still aim for, to Lincoln Caplan, who is the Best Mentor Ever.

I am indebted to Harold Koh and Robert Post for bringing me to Yale Law School, and to Alan and Louise Schwartz, and the Truman Capote Literary Trust, for supporting my work there. Judith Resnik, Denny Curtis, Linda Greenhouse, Reva Siegel, and Jack Balkin have made the law school feel like home.

Ariel Doctoroff, Marcelle Friedman, Katie Henderson, and Zara Kessler contributed skilled research assistance and excellent companionship to this project. Sarah Yager was the fact checker of my dreams, nerdy as that sounds. Im grateful to Anne Fadiman for suggesting I report about the aftermath of Phoebe Princes death in South Hadley, to Natalie Engdahl for translating from Swedish, and to Bill Brazell for digging around in his garage for old trial transcripts.

Ive benefited from the help and advice of many experts along the way, and I am especially grateful to danah boyd, Elizabeth Englander, Dorothy Espelage, Robert Faris, Alison Trachtman Hill, Sameer Hinduja, Justin Patchin, Dan Olweus, Laurence Steinberg, George Sugai, and Nancy Willard. Thank you to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Dave Cullen, Charlie Duhigg, Jake Halpern, Jack Hitt, Ann Hulbert, Matt Labash, Steve Mufson, Mark Oppenheimer, Annie Paul, Rachel Simmons, and Emily Yoffe for collegial and critical chats. For essential help with reporting, I thank Johnny Callas, Justin Carbonella, Ally Gutierrez, Kajsa and David Heinemann, Chris Kraeuter, Hugh McDermott, Sean McElhaney, Lauren Moss, and Melissa Robinson. I salute Stefan Pryor, Emily Byrne, and John Flanders for getting Monique back to school. It was a group effort.

Thank you to my early readers, who made this book better with their sharp comments: James Forman, David Goldblum, Rachel Gross, Dan Ho, Alison MacKeen, Susan Swearerwho also offered invaluable expertiseand Richard Weissbourd. I feel like I owe all of New Haven for listening to me yammer on about this book, and Im full of gratitude and wonder for the generosity of my friends: Darcy Chase, Julie Friedberg, Nathaniel Frank, Cori Schreiber, Kishwar Rizvi, Beverly Gage, Jenn Marlon, Myra Jones-Taylor, Leslie Stone, Paige MacLean, Sheila Hayre, Pericles Lewis, Alethea Desrosiers, Eliza Leighton, Erica Perl, Elizabeth Shreve, Julie Farkas, and Seth Goldman. I am grateful to Judge Richard Posner, Judge Frank Easterbrook, and Lee Epstein for inviting me to the University of Chicago law school to talk about student free speech. I want to thank all my thoughtful Slate readers for their comments and feedback, and Im awestruck by the fans of the Slate Political Gabfest.

I am honored by the trust of the kids and families who are central to this book. Monique, Alexa, Alycia, Jacob, Penny, Tiffany, Robbie, Flannery and Jenthank you for the invaluable gift of your stories.

My family puts up with me and makes me think and laugh, and I cherish them: My parents, Rick and Eileen, my sisters, Lara, Jill, Dana, their husbands, Matt, Joel, and David, and their delightful children, Harper, Trevor, Carter, and Ella. Bob Knox will always be part of our tribe. I am also wonderfully blessed in my husbands family: Margery, Jim, Michael, Debbie, Zack, Matt, and Elena.

Paul, thank you for your boundless love and support, and for laughing when I missed my train stop. You are the best choice I ever made. Eli and Simon, thank you for your love of adventure and sense of humor, and for not bullying anyone. My grandmother Mickey was alive at the birth of this book but isnt here for its publication. She told us that she would find a way to keep reading the New York Times, so maybe she can include these pages, too. Gamma, I miss you, and your memory will always be for me a blessing.

I M NOT A THERAPIST, AND I DON T RUN A PROGRAM OF ANY sort for kids. But Ive had the chance to talk to a lot of smart people about the issues in this book, and I asked many of them what advice theyd give about bullying. In consultation with Dr. Susan Swearer, the University of LincolnNebraska school psychologist whose work you know by now, Ive distilled the wisdom Ive gleaned from them, along with my own ideas, in the FAQ that follow.

Q: What is the first step I should take if Im being bullied?

You have surely heard this before (at least eight times?) but if you are being bullied or harassed and you cant make it stop on your own or youre upset by it, talk to someone you trust. If at all possible, choose an adult as well as someone your age. I know that can be hard, but Im hoping that if you stop and think, there will be some adult you can safely turn toa parent, a friends parent, a teacher, a counselor. Im with Arturo Bejar, the Facebook engineer, on this one: the people who are best equipped to help you are the ones who are close by and will understand the context for what is happening to you.

You might also look for a sympathetic youth group in your areaone for LGBT kids, maybe, or kids with disabilities, or a group thats based at a church or synagogue or mosque, or a suicide prevention effort. Or maybe youll be lucky enough to find a mentor like Johnny Callas, Moniques boxing coach. The point is that many of us are one or two degrees removed from people who are prepared to help, if they understand whats happening and know how to find you. They may not be able to fix everything right away, or even in the near future, but having allies and someone to talk with is crucial. And for immediate hope and inspiration, you might also want to check out Dan Savages It Gets Better Project, or Lady Gagas Born This Way Foundation, or make a video for one of those yourself (Marina, one of the kids you met in , has a great one, which you can find in the list of resources at the back of this book).

Q: What can I do if Im being harassed online?

First off, you can ask the website to take down any content that violates its rules, as many harassing posts do. If that site happens to be Facebook, report the abuse yourself and they will take your word for it that youre being bullied, they told me. You can also take Facebook up on its helpful invitation to forward the mean content to an adult you can trust. Print out mean content so you have a record of it, or take a screen shot. Even if you feel like youd rather make it go away by deleting it, if you want help dealing with it, you need to show other people whats happening. Its usually better not to get into a back-and-forth with someone who is bullying youits almost never a good idea to reply to a harassing post. What seems like the perfect retort can end up backfiring. If you find yourself obsessively checking back to look for follow-up posts, try taking a break. And if you are having continuing trouble on a social networking site, you might be better off dropping out for a bit. You can always go back when things have calmed down. Plus, your good friends will know how to reach you by phone or by getting together. You dont need to be online to know who they are.