Why is bullying such a big problem for kids today?

Why is bullying such a big issue for kids today?  Isn't bullying really just an issue of kids being kids?  Our parents tell stories about being pushed around in school, it even happened to me, but we didn't call it bullying.  Why is today so different that we need a state law to protect kids from bullying?

Bullying effects approximately five million kids in the United States, impacting about 1 in 7 school children and making bullying a serious problem in every classroom in America.  Still, my interviews and presentations are often filled with sincere questions from adults wanting to know why bullying is a real problem.

I couldn't help but think about the questions I've been getting about my Happy Kids Safe Schools initiative while reading a new series in the LA Times called Discovering Autism.  The article starts with this question: "Autism boom: an epidemic of disease or of discovery?"

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 1% of children across the country have some form of autism - 20 times the prevailing figure in the 1980s.  Two decades into the boom however, the balance of evidence suggests that is is more a surge in diagnoses that in disease.  Factors that have nothing to do with biology can explain much of the steep increase in cases around the world: an expanded definition of autism, spreading awareness of the disorder and an improved ability to distinguish it from other conditions."

I think many of these statements about autism apply to the dramatic rise we are seeing in bullying and peer to peer violence in our schools.  The fact is that bullying may not be a bigger problem today than it was for our grandparents, but our ability to record and track teen bullying on a national and international level has increased significantly.  Cyberbullying has the ability to impact far more kids in a shorter amount of time than one on one bullying on the schoolyard.  And social networking creates 24-7 peer pressure for teenagers, so the bullying doesn't stop when they leave the playground.  Now bullying follows our children home and gets through walls and locked doors through text messaging and social networking.  Twenty or thirty years ago it was easy to pull two kids apart during recess and send them home to their parents.  Today the victim goes home and turns on their phone or computer to find that the humiliation and name-calling has followed them home, and they aren't even safe in their own bedrooms.

Just like taking care of kids with autism, education and awareness about the seriousness about bullying is a key to keeping kids safe.  Some forms of bullying haven't changed for decades, but cyberbullying is a new serious twist.   The outcomes of bullying can also be far more serious today than it was 20 years ago, with social networking spreading news and ideas about teen suicide.  So why is bullying so much different today than it was when our grandparents where in school?  Because we live in such a different world now, with such different technology and different expectations about human behavior.  We can't solve all these problems but together we can take a stand.