Every parent’s nightmare

Monday, May 3, 2010 | 2:06 a.m.

In October 2003, Ryan Halligan, a 13-year-old Vermont boy, took his own life. He didn’t leave a note and there was no apparent reason. Yes, his parents knew that Ryan had been a victim of bullying on and off since the fifth grade, but at that point, it seemed to no longer be an issue.

Ryan, a boy with a sweet disposition and infectious smile, struggled in school and wasn’t especially athletic. The combination made him the victim of the school bully. The Halligans had tried to deal with it. John Halligan told his son that the bullying was “just words.”

It got better, but then in seventh grade, the bullying became awful. Ryan’s parents talked to him about seeing the principal to discuss the problem, but he didn’t want to do that. Ryan said other students found that going to the principal only made the bullying worse. He wanted to learn to fight in case the bully got physical, so his dad trained with him.

It seemed to work. In February 2003 the bully confronted Ryan at a park, and Ryan fought back. The bullying stopped, and Ryan would later tell his parents that he and the bully became friends.

As John would learn after Ryan’s death, the bully wasn’t Ryan’s friend. He had morphed from schoolyard bully to cyberbully.

The boy spread rumors and attacks about Ryan online that grew as they gained circulation among their peers. Ryan tried to quell the rumors, then found himself caught in another trap. A popular girl befriended him online and chatted him up. She elicited personal information that she spread to the amusement of her friends. At school, in front of her friends, she told him it was all a joke and called him a loser. “It’s girls like you that make me want to kill myself,” Ryan told her.

He killed himself the next month.

John Halligan doesn’t blame anyone specifically for Ryan’s death. “I believe my son died of a disease called depression,” he says, although he notes that there were several contributing factors.

Ryan’s story shows how poorly students, parents and school officials understand bullying and depression. In Ryan’s case, there were signs of depression that went unnoticed and no one at school did anything to stop the bullying, even though people knew about it.

After Ryan’s death, school officials passed it off as a rare event, John said, although as he researched teen suicide, he realized “my son was the tip of an iceberg; he wasn’t an anomaly.”

Nearly 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys have seriously thought of suicide in the past year, and 1 in 10 students has made a plan, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over the past few years, John Halligan has been on a crusade. He has had two laws in Vermont passed to deal with bullying and suicide prevention. He travels the country, going to schools to talk about bullying to both students and parents. He was in Las Vegas this week at the invitation of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, which has programs to teach students and teachers about bullying. Halligan has told Ryan’s story at more than 400 schools.

One of the issues he raises is that children live in an evolving high-speed world unlike anything their parents grew up with. Rumors and gossip quickly incubate online. Today’s children are almost constantly plugged in to the online world, which can add immense pressure. A wayward comment can take on a life of its own in a vicious online echo chamber.

Adults need to find ways to tone things down. Schools must do better to watch out for bullying and intervene, and they also have to watch out for students showing signs of depression. But parents can’t shirk their own responsibilities. They have to do better as well. As Halligan puts it, parents need new parenting skills because of the technology.

The website RyansStory.org offers a list of valuable tips and resources for parents and schools about cyberbullying, depression and online safety.

The Halligans have admirably shared their story and the lessons they learned to try to prevent another tragedy from happening.

We hope people listen.