By Ariella Monti
John Halligan’s story brought hundreds of West Islip parents to tears. Halligan was the guest speaker at a West Islip School District presentation, Bullying, Cyberbullying and Youth Depression, held at the high school on February 22.
A parent whose 13-year-old son committed suicide in 2003 after being bullied on- and off-line, Halligan travels the country educating fellow parents and students on the dangers of cyberbullying.
Prior to the two-hour presentation, Halligan shared his son Ryan’s story with students at Udall Road Middle School where he focused on the events leading up to Ryan's death, including being picked on by a classmate in school, verbal abuse through online instant messaging services and rejection by a girl who lead him to believe they could be in a relationship by flirting with him online. Halligan presented the same story to the students at Beach Street Middle School the next day.
Halligan, a Long Island native now living in Vermont, used a different approach with parents, focusing not on his son Ryan, but on the mistakes he said he and his wife, Kelly, made, which he felt contributed to Ryan’s death.
“The computer in the bedroom was a colossal mistake,” said Halligan a former IBM employee and self-proclaimed computer geek.
Halligan explained that the computer gave Ryan a place to escape instead of spending time with his parents. On the same computer that Ryan was verbally assaulted, Halligan said Ryan found companionship with a former classmate who shared a similar, dismal outlook on life.
“Pay attention to who your kids are speaking with,” Halligan said adding that he believed this toxic friendship fueled his son’s depression.
Halligan said one of his biggest mistakes was not recognizing clear signs that his son was depressed. When Ryan refused to go on an annual camping trip, Halligan said he took his son’s attitude as that of a moody teenager.
Ryan, who always had difficulties in school, confessed to a bad progress report and his parents responded by reinforcing how proud they were of how hard he worked and said they would create a plan to help him succeed. When Ryan muttered, “What’s the sense,” Halligan confessed, “I thought he needed a pep-talk,” instead of asking him why he felt that way and encouraging him to express his feelings.
Halligan acknowledged that he did not have a grasp on how bullying has changed since he grew up on Long Island. He added that when he was Ryan’s age, conflicts were solved with a fight on the playground. He taught Ryan how to defend himself and after a schoolyard brawl, he assumed everything had been resolved. “The behavior itself is nothing new,” Halligan said of the act of bullying. “It’s just the method that is something new.”
After Ryan’s death, Halligan worked diligently to change the way bullying, depression and suicide are addressed in school and by government. Halligan was instrumental in the passing of a 2004 Vermont law defining bullying, making it easier for school administrators to discipline students.
In 2006 he helped pass a suicide prevention law making it mandatory for schools to include depression and suicide in their health studies curriculum. Halligan said he believes children are the key to preventing suicide as they encounter these issues as a friend or confidant. “Our kids are on the front lines,” Halligan said. “Our kids are the secret to solving these problems.”
The student-organized Udall Road Middle School Internet Safety Commission played a role in the night by producing its own presentation. Using videos, statistics and interviews with fellow students the video gave parents an inside look at how their children are using the Internet.
Their survey concluded that 70% of respondents have a Facebook profile, but 30% do not use their privacy settings. About half of respondents were approached online by someone they didn’t know and all spend between two and six hours on the Internet.
For more information on John Halligan and his son Ryan, visit RyanPatrickHalligan.org.
Computer Safety Tips for Parents
• Keep computers in public areas, like kitchens or living rooms.
• Open up your own social networking accounts and become “friends” with your children.
• Keep a list of all of your child’s Internet accounts and passwords
• Get to know your children’s friends in school and online
• Encourage your child to come to you for support if they are being bullied
• If children are having trouble confiding in you, find another trusted adult in which they can
• Purchase parental control software that monitors what your child does online
• Evaluate your child’s maturity, judgment and ability to handle social media like instant messaging, texting and Web sites like Facebook or MySpace
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