been messy and since then and kate was uncertain that i was trying to do something, some noble gesture to make the destruction of the marriage, the previous marriage go easier somehow. and that was a mistake. i was -- it was just a mistake and i should have walked home and said, you have everything that you wanted, and i have a new life. >> and the full interrue view w be monday night. be monday night. "anderson 360" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com welcome to this anderson cooper special. "bullying" it stops here. we've come here, all of us, drawn together by the power of absence. the absence of kids. of young adults, of future parents and friends, healers and leaders. none of whom will ever be, all of whom have left us because as young adults or as children they were bullied beyond their capacity to endure.

they are the reason we're here. we owe them and we owe them more than talk. in the years since a wave of bullying suicides struck the country and got worldwide attention there's been too much talk and not enough action. a year ago, rutgers freshman, tyler clementi, the young man right there, his life was thrown on to the internet it was more than he could bear. he went to the george washington bridge and took his own life. almost a year to the day from tyler's suicide, jamie lost his battle with the bullies and he took part of the "it gets better" campaign online, but he hoped it would get better, but one night, he lost that hope. the bullying outlived him. his sister and friends were taunted the night of his wake at school. we've come to know jamie and tyler this past year just as we came to know so many children. these are the faces of other students, other students who have taken their own lives after being bullied. the bullying happens every day in school and online. sometimes we don't know about it.

sometimes we just hear stories about it and sometimes, it is even caught on tape. watch. >> get your ass off my book bag. >> okay move, move! >> i'll beat your ass. >> what? no, ow -- why are you stabbing me with that? >> give it to him, hard! >> you heard the other kid saying, give it to him, hard. that's a boy named alex and some of the abuse he endured every single day.

it is from a remarkable documentary called "the bully project" and we will show you more of it on the program tonight. the reason we are gathered here tonight is to make sure that alex' story and all the other kids' stories of bullies don't just get handed down through generations of bullies and victims and hurt. we want to say and say out loud, the bullying stops here. we want solutions and tonight, we hope to begin to find them. dr. phil mcgraw is with us and so is bullying expert, rosalind wiseman. parents and members of the rutgers community. my friends, kelly ripa is here, and like any mom with three kids, she worries about, jane lynche, who is raising daughters with her wife, will be here. the issue came to the country's attention and i'll bring in phil mcgraw and rosalind wiseman. phil, what kind of grade would you give in terms of progress that's been made this year on the issue. >> i would give a high grade as far as intention to both legislators and administrators and teachers.

the teachers are the heroes. come on, these are people who work for very little money, and they are very dedicated, but i would give us a low grade for execution, and a low grade for what we have accomplished, and i will tell you, anderson, because we are going at this from the wrong point of view. we are dealing with this with bullies as criminals, and they're, and then they are victims. we can't see them in that way. there's got to be intervention with both. it is not koconsequencing it. there's got to be intervention with both. they both need help and skills and only things they can get if we don't put it in the curriculum and we need money behind it to make it part of the

curriculum and make it as much a part of the student's day as we do history, math and science. >> rosalind, what kind of grade would you give? >> about a c minus for many of the reasons dr. phil spoke of. it's so punitive. it doesn't understand the complexesities of tissue. we have good people intending to do well reacting to anxiety and are not thinking through how it impacts a school. but what i -- who i do give an a to are the kids and the young people who are making videos and songs and music videos, that's authentic to their life experience and sharing with other people. >> i don't give the kids an a? >> you don't. why not? you are disagreeing with me? >> i give the kids, do what you say. the ones on youtube reaching out for their own experience. what i don't give an a to are the kids on the bus that sat there and watched that happen and they're just as guilty as the kids doing it. >> we conduct aid study and we'll show you the results throughout the hour. more than 75% of the cases, i think it was, kids don't intervene. nobody intervenes and we're going to look at the importance of intervention. when i first started to try to understand the bullying issues i

saw simply bullies and victims, but after researching this and talking to dr. phil and rosalind and others, i realized it is far more complex. we decided to team up with sociologists. we launched an in depth investigation at a wheatly school on new york's long island. we wanted to look at how this problem plays out in one school. and what's really interesting is in doing this study, the sociologist believes we've uncovered some larger truths about schools and bullying nationwide. take a look. >> they're calling it like, gay, faggot, dumb ass. >> you're a shut, you're fat, you're disgusting. >> like a lot of schools in america, wheatley school has a bullying problem. >> they physically abused me.

mentally abused me. emotionally abused me and aisle admit it i had thoughts of suicide in ninth grade. >> more than 700 students at wheatley were asked very specific questions about aggression like -- does a student at your school pick on you or do something mean to you. did you pick on or do something mean to another student at your school? the results were eye-opening. a key finding, bullying, what researchers call aggressors, are also often victims. >> do you think somebody is an aggressor a victim? or do you think it crosses over. >> everyone is a bully and everyone's a victim. >> everyone's a bully? >> you've bullied. i've bullied. whether you know it or not you've bullied someone. >> the study also shows why kids bully. sociologist robert ferris calls it social combat using aggressive bullying behavior to climb the social ladder. >> it is pretty much a race to the top. but i getting to the top, you view yourself as one of the more important people of your school, and that is the reason why bullying occurs.

>> the study shows that the higher they get, the more vi victimized they become. 56% of wheatley students surveyed said they were involved in either aggression, victimization or both. and over 80% of incidents were never reported to adults. and joining us now are two teens from wheatley. you heard from bridget. 5% of victims and top 20% of aggressors. surprised to hear that. and josh, a senior, who is rated in the top 5% of victims and top 5% of aggressors. and we're joined by the study's author. robert and kelly ripa is also in the audience. bridget, you say everyone is a bully or a victim at one time or another. what do you mean? >> the obvious bully that picks on someone else. and is like that video showed, there can be a physical bully. there can be an emotional bully that attacks whether it's behind a computer or just youtube, it doesn't always have to be

like -- i'm going to punch you in the face and stuff like that, but threatening is bullying or you can bully yourself. >> it's not going to go away. >> it stays with you. >> it's interesting, bob, to me the study was really eye-opening and we picked wheatley because it takes this problem seriously but the results are similar to schools around the country that you studied. the idea of social combat i find fascinating. can you explain that more? >> one thing we found is that there's really two types of patterns going on. one is where you know, maybe a vulnerable kid who's a little different in some way, kind of violated in some of the unwritten codes of social life in a school is getting piled on and picked on relentlessly in a chronic fashion. but then there's this whole other sort of hidden -- and actually more common form of aggression where kids are using it a little more tactically to climb these social hierarchies

and that's much more prevalent in all the schools we've seen and it seems to peak in the middle to upper ranges of the status hierarchy. >> and josh, this rings true to you because you had two friends who turned on you to try to advance themselves? what happened? >> as their life went on they felt like, oh, we can make new friends. be cooler, go to parties every friday or saturday night but this kid, he's a nerd. one day you're like close buddies hanging out and the second day they're treating you like trash. >> do you think you're both a victim and an aggressor? you scored the same on both. >> i could see the victim part. i went through a lot with that. but the aggressive part i don't really see because i'm pretty quiet in school. >> do you find it interesting? a lot of kids didn't see themselves as aggressors. >> they may not realize that they have done something that was interpreted add mean to a peer. kids may not always be aware of it. >> kelly, you have three kids

and the idea of social combat, and to me that was an eye-opening phrase. >> no, i think it makes a lot of of sense, because nobody wants to be the kid that is suddenly turned on, i think. if you are sort of a swept up in the group, and you see a good friend who is at the top of the social food chain, say, and suddenly, the tables have turned and suddenly, this sort of popular kid has become the victim in an attempt to take over the social hierarchy, i don't think that there is going to be a lot of interference, because nobody wants to be the person who is suddenly turned on. >> does the idea of social combat ring true to you? >> i've been writing about it for 20 years. teachers, administrators and parents look at it and say, that's the way human beings are. and the thing we have to consistently say to people is -- degrading people is never right. and it always comes down to what you're being degraded by race, you're being degraded by social

socioeconomic class, not having as much money as someone else, your sexual orientation, or perceived sexual orientation, it always comes down to that. >> and dr. phil, it is so different. adults that say -- this has always been around and that's true but now, online, it's not just in schools anymore. it's 24 hours a day. >> and the problem with this and you were talking about the impact of bullying after the fact, what happens is that the victim takes over for the bully when the bully leaves. bully leaves but the victim repeats it in their head over and over and over, this internal dialogue where they repeat and even enhance and embellish what the bully said and therefore, embrace it from the inside out. >> you had a form spring account, and i know it is not as popular as it used to be, but people said horrible things to you and why did you keep the

account? >> well, they weren't all negative, and i did get a few nice ones. >> that was enough to make you want to keep it? >> i also like to respond to the bad ones. i did respond. if you're just like, all right, i see what you're spending your time doing -- >> plus you want to take the temperature and see if they're still on you or not and see if there were 100 last night and 08 tonight, it's better. >> i used to get seven in one hour, seven in a week. i can get one -- >> didn't it feel like if you didn't respond you were weak? you couldn't let it pass? >> yes. and sometimes they would write back and say, oh, look at you not writing back. >> we have to take a quick break and more startling research from the study on bullying and actually some good news on bullying. we will talk to the principal of wheatly, and also, minnesota's school district facing a lawsuit with teachers barred from talking about homosexuality, and we will talk to people in that school who says that the policy creates a toxic environment

where they are harassed routinely. >> you get involved and you feel like they think you're a piece of garbage that they can throw away. >> "bullying: it stops here" we'll be back in a minute. ♪ and the flowers and the trees ♪ ♪ all laugh when you walk by ♪ and the neighbors' kids run and hide ♪ deep inside you, there's a person who refuses to be kept deep inside you. ♪ but you're not ♪ you're the one be true to yourself. what's healthier than that?

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welcome back to "bullying: it stops here." before the break we discovered that high schools are social battlefields with students fighting for supremacy to rise on the social ladder. students use aggression or bullying to improve their position, but the good news is that the study shows that more often than not, it does not really work to improve your social standing long term. the other key is we're learning about the importance of kids intervening to help other kids. dr. phil talked about this earlier. in 77% of aggressive incidents, no bystanders intervened. 77%, and that has to change.

joining the conversation is jacob, another wheatly student. our study caught his eye, because he is one of the students in his school that often tries to stop bullying in his high school. and shaun feeney, wheatley's principal. first of all, principal, it is, i think, incredibly brave of you to allow us to do the study in your school and i want to stress that your school takes this problem very seriously and it's one of the top ranked schools in the country. were you surprised by some of the results? >> i was surprised somewhat. i have worked in a number of different schools in a number of different social and cultural context overseas and in the city, and what i found in my experience with kids is that kids are kids are kids are kids. and unfortunately, these dynamics occur in all places. that's not to excuse it or tolerate it. but you can't be a high school principal and not acknowledge and recognize problems such as

drugs, alcohol, sex and bullying. these are all issues, many of which are tied into the issue of self-esteem and sense of self which is something that's developing in high school kids. >> bob, you talk about the power of bystanders to actually stop this. >> bystanders, form the majority of a school and they have -- they're the ones who allocate status. collectively. they decide who's cool and who's not. they have this sort of power to step in and change the culture of the school and intervene in specific situations. >> and that's a hopeful thing because if you can get the norm being kids intervening, that can change that dynamic of bully >> absolutely. but they have to have the faith and trust that their teachers and administrator also do right by them. and so what i want to applaud is you saying -- this is a problem

that happens. the more information that i can get about this problem, like doing this evaluation, helps me do right by my kids. that's the kind of principal we have to have. >> jacob, you're one of the top interveners in the school. why do you think that is? what is it about bullying that you've seen that makes you want to intervene? >> well, i believe that no one deserves to feel bad about themselves or have other people view bad of them, so if you have the opportunity to make someone feel better about themselves or prevent it from happening then i believe you should take it. >> did you know that you were one of the top interveners? >> no, i didn't. >> you must have been incredibly relieved. you open up the study and you're like, yay, i'm the intervener, that's good. how do you, principal, how do you get kids -- more interveners? how do you build that number? >> the power of the intervener was very exciting to me because this study in the research clearly showed that if you are friends with someone who is an intervener you're more likely to intervene the next time.

so this sense of cultural norms which i think you spoke of earlier, the renormalizing the culture, you can change. and the key is from students. >> and i was interested in your study to see that bullying doesn't work. as a strategy long term, to get to the top of the social hierarchy, it's nonsustainable and it doesn't really work? is that correct? >> on average it doesn't? >> it works in the moment. it just doesn't work long term. immediate gratification is there and that's the most powerful reward a kid can have is immediate gratification but it doesn't work long term, right? >> there's exceptions. it depends when they're picking on. i don't want to get into details on how bullies can be successful, but there were exceptions to it, but by and large, that is the great irony, that it is not working, and actually, even sort of more surprise, it increases the anxiety and depression of the

bullies, themselves, experience. it increases their anxiety levels and their depression levels and i think they end up hating themselves on some level. >> why do you think by and large, it does not work as a strategy to get to the top of the heap? >> if your goal is to climb to the top of the hierarchy, excel in something. there's a lot better ways that are expected and admired. play the flute. >> that will do it. the old play the flute. you were in the band, weren't you? >> there are a lot of better ways. there's a lot better ways to do it, and i don't think that the id cans are really fooled by the aggressive people, and they are not overly impressed. >> they don't trust the bully so they stay away from them. >> do you think that's true? >> absolutely. you watch kids go through the process and they realize that they are like paranoid about having to re-affirm their power position so they're never sure who they're friends are and if they'll really back them up or if they back them up it's

because they fear them so loyalty becomes that you're backing up somebody because they're doing something unethical, but loyalty is not speaking truth to power, and friendship is really speaking truth to power. >> kids are getting caught up in the status games and what they should be doing is focusing on coming out of high school with a handful of good friends. having good friendships is really protective. it helps kids heal. >> we got to take a break. an up-close look at one school system where seven kids have taken their own lives. is the school's policy of not discussing sexuality part of the problem? they're facing a lawsuit rite now. we'll talk to students up ahead. >> they would call me "fag" and "gross" and tell me i'm going to hell and stuff and it makes you feel like you're the grossest person in the world. vegetables...60 calories. ya' know those jeans look nice. they do? yup. so you were checking me out? yup. [ male announcer ] progresso. 40 soups 100 calories or less.

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>> they would taunt in the hallways. i felt like i could not escape it. i promise it will get so much better, and i have so much s support from people i don't even know online. i know it sounds creepy, but they are so nice and caring and they don't want me to ever die. >> they don't want me to die. that was jamie rodemeyer. laws differ from state to state and bullying policies differ from school to school sometimes. in minnesota's largest school district, seven students have taken their own lives in less than two years. the school district is facing a

federal investigation and a lawsuit from two advocacy groups and several students. the allegation? pervasive anti-gay harassment. the students suing say the district's policy of barring teachers from talking about homosexuality jeopardizes their position in school. the school district, heavily conservative, declined to speak to us citing the ongoing litigation but they did defend the policy to cnn in april. >> all the students come with parents in this community and parents have a wide range of beliefs. we serve them all. >> that's the superintendent of the school district. with us now, four students who were fighting back. kyle, damian, brittany and dillon. and also with us is activist and actress jane lynch and also sunny hostin from trutv. kyle, you told me yesterday about an incident that happened to you in the bathroom and what happened?

>> i had to use the bathroom and i walk in the door and these people were watching me. they were just staring at me. i go into the stall and i hear laughing. i hear laughter. and i look up and i have something dripping down my head and someone was peeing on me. >> how often does this happen? do you get bullied or pushed around? >> almost every day. >> damian, how about you? you are straight, but your two dads are gay, and you're on a gymnastics team which people make fun of you for, and what do people say to you? >> gay, faggot, gay boy. >> brittany? what do people call you? >> they call dike. [ bleep ]. and even words i'm ashamed to say even to this day. >> if you go to a counselor in your school, brittany, what do

they tell you? what do they say to you? >> they tell me not to use that language. that's not appropriate. and -- >> but you're not the one using the language? >> yeah. i explained to them what they would say and how they said it but they would tell me not to talk that way and not use that language or just for the better, ignore him or walk away like it didn't bother you because if you act like it doesn't bother you it will stop, but it never did. >> dylan, you have been recently taken out of school and now you are home schooled. did you not feel safe in school? >> kids made me feel like i was the grossest person in the world and they would just go against walls and say, here comes the he/she. or here comes the trash. and they made me feel gross and i didn't feel safe at school so i just left. >> damian, if -- i know you had an incident where someone called you the "n" word. did teachers do something about that? >> yeah. they were more -- they would take care of it faster than they would have if someone called me gay or faggot.

>> so if someone uses a racial slur, teachers respond, you're say something. >> yeah, right away. >> but if someone calls you the "f" world what would they say? >> they would shrug it off and tell me not to use that word like britney said. >> anderson, can i jump in? >> yes. >> as a parent, anderson, i am stuing with rage. i just feel so angry and so upset for the four of you and your class experience and it seems to me that this is all backwards. instead of taking it up with the kids who are tormenting daily and using abusive language and being abusive to the students, this young man can't even go to school anymore. he shouldn't be the one having to stay home. the bullies and the aggressors should be made to stay home or expelled from school. i just want you to know that people do care about you. i care about you.

i really feel touched for your experience. really. >> jane, you and your wife are raising a daughter. when you hear these kids what goes through your mind? >> you know, these kids do need to know that they are loved and that it's really, really sad that they don't have an advocate and i think this neutrality policy is abdicating their adult responsibility and it makes me really sad. >> sonny, the 'school district is facing a federal investigation and a lawsuit. what could happen? is this criminal? >> certainly. a lot of this behavior is protected by federal law. these are civil rights' violations and i think that's what the problem is here. these children aren't allowed to be their authentic selves, and our laws have to protect that. don't we want our children to grow and be their authentic selves. i think the law should be here to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

>> rosalyn, the idea of being neutral policy, a policy where you do not use specific words, does that work as an anti-bullying policy? >> no, that plays right into the bully's hand, because it stops well-meaning people from speaking out, and makes these children feel like they have no recourse. i want to go back to what the superintendent said, we have a variety of beliefs, and we need to address all of the beliefs. the single belief that a superintendent of a school should be focused on is the health and dignity of the children. that is it. >> do you think it would make a difference if you could talk to teachers and talk to counselors? do you think it would make a difference in your lives? >> yeah, i do. >> how so? >> i think if people understood what we were going through that maybe, just maybe they'd understand and if they would just listen to us speak and

actually, meet us before they jump to conclusions, maybe this wouldn't happen. you know, i have prayed every day that i didn't have to go back to school. and i go -- >> you pray every day you don't have to go back? >> yeah. i would hide under the seats of the bus and -- >> you would hide under the seats? >> i would. >> i understand that at one point, how many kids did you know who were bullying you? >> 40. >> 40 kids? >> yes. >> you can identify 40 kids? >> yeah. >> i want to thank you kids for your courage and strength. i think you're so impressive and so brave and i think you have tremendous courage. thank you. i appreciate it. coming up, we'll show you what happened to this little boy, alex, after the bullying that happened to him was caught on camera. before we go, i met kyle yesterday and all the kids

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welcome back to this special report "bullying: it stops here." from the campus of rutgers university, and so much bullying occurs online as well as we have talked about in school, and it

is rare that it is caught on camera, but there is an extraordinary documentary that is called "the bullying project" and it is shown to the department of education, the parents featured in have met with the president and the first lady, and gives you a look at some of the horrors that some kids face. in is what 13-year-old alex faced on a school bus in sioux city, iowa. >> get your ass off my book bag. i'll beat your ass. >> come on, alex. >> no, no, ouch! why are you stabbing me with that? >> i'm going to knock your face off.

>> give it to him hard! >> why? >> joining me now is the filmmaker and kelly ripa, jane lynche, dr. phil mcgraw and rosalind wiseman. the film is extraordinary. i know kelly and i watched it last night and we have all seen it, but i know you spent a year in this school, and did it surprise you what you saw and what you were able to capture? >> it didn't surprise me and it was sort of, i think, the goal of making the film was to get out there and to show what kids go through. to show what kyle goes through. to give it something really real so that we can stop denying it so that we could stop sort of saying this is just a rite of passage. it didn't surprise me. and i think -- the scary part is it didn't surprise a lot of people. >> you were so concerned about alex, the little boy on the bus, you actually showed the footage to his mom? i want to show another clip from the film. >> dinner -- he said some boy you've gotten used to this and

i'm not. i'm not used to it. i didn't know and i'm not about to get used to it. does it make you feel good when they punch you or kick you? or stab you? do these things make you feel good? >> no. >> well, i don't know. i'm starting to think i don't feel anything anymore. >> that was the moment that i think scared me the most when he said, i don't feel anything anymore. and you see a boy who has been failed on every level. my children were afraid of his experience on the bus, and they watched it, and it terrified them. it is very far away from what their experience has been at school, and when he said, i don't feel anything anymore, well, kids will go to great lengths to feel something and i feel like somebody needs to intervene on his behalf in the

right way. >> well, that is what bothers me about this. look, these bullies have parents and where are the parents? if your child is a bully, it is your job to know that your child is a bully. it is your job the know that. it is your job the intervene at that level as a parent. it is your job to talk to the school. >> i have talked to a lot of the schools who have tried to intervene with the parents of bullies and the parents don't recognize it as a problem. >> that is right, a lot of times they don't e site, because there is aggressive behavior in the home verbally or physically and that is the norm. these kids are not born this way, anderson, they learn this. it is a social skill deficit that they learn, and their parents need to know that and intervene. >> the place where we stop it is the public forum of the school.

because we can't control these homes. but we can control what happens to kids at school. and we can have -- we can push for more empathy and more understanding. that's where we have a chance to make an impact. >> what bothers me is i don't think you can put a fence around the school. administrators say it happened off campus, it was this, it was that. you have to take down the fences and boundaries. we are responsible adults, and if we know this is going on, we need to caucus and talk to the parents and have a discussion about this. and not to come in and put the bully under the jail. you won't punish this out of the bully. that young man that was doing that on the bus, that bully, to me, that is a tormented child. the bully. there's something going on. >> but what about at home that night for dinner and the mom said, what did you do today? he didn't say, i tormented this little boy alex anded him, and i strangled him and i punched him, and it was fine.

>> jane, do you agree with -- that the school is the place to address it? at least it's the most obvious place to or not that it's easy but the easiest place to address it? >> i think changing the hearts and minds of people is almost a fruitless enterprise. i think you have to institute it in the schools. and there has to be real -- there has to be real consequences for the kids who bully. these kids are not shot out of a vacuum. they come from a home that instills certain values and certain behaviors and there's really nothing we can do about it but at our schools and at the legislature level we can do something about protecting these kids. >> jane, you said it does have to happen at school but here's the point. if that's going to happen, then we have to teach the teachers what to do. these teachers don't know what to do. they haven't -- nobody has sat down and given them courses and life skills and intervention with these kids and teaching empathy. we can't ask them to do it if we don't teach them what to do and we don't fund it so it can

become part of the curriculum. >> i think that's an excellent point. we do need to help with professional development. not just teachers but administrators, cafeteria folks, bus drivers, all the support personnel. you hear this when administrators, teachers watch our film they'll say, like, i don't have the tools. >> we got to take break. we'll be right back with the panel.

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welcome back with our panel. >> you captured a moment for me in the film that will stay with me forever and it sort of crystallized everything perfectly. the two boys coming in from recess and the principal is there to greet them. one is distraught and one is chasing him and she slows them down and says -- what's going on. >> he's offering his hand and let this drop. you may go. cole, i expected more. >> he does this every single day. >> then why are you around him? >> i don't. he comes to me. i try to get away from him. he follows me and he follows me and he calls me a pu -- [ bleep ]. >> honey, that is is not right

and he should not do that. you know what, he was trying to say he was sorry. >> he already did and he didn't mean it. it continued on. >> you didn't -- when you stuck out your hand you didn't mean it either. so that means you're just like him. >> i was screaming at the screen. >> you see this all the time? >> i do. i work in schools and i see it and what is so infuriating is that we often say to kids, they should trust us. they should believe in adults. and when they have adults in their life who have failed them in this way or fail the way the kids have been failed, why should children believe that we can do differently? why should they take this enormous leap of faith? and reveal this vulnerability? and all of this fear? there's two things that i talk to teachers all the time about. one is that they are at the bridge. that if they're good teachers and they are in math or french or spanish, the kids will talk

to them. the second thing teachers need to do regardless of what they teach is if kids use the word fag or retarded or any of that stuff, they say to the kid who said it, mark, or whatever your name is, if you say that word and you are saying this word to put somebody down, it is not acceptable in my classroom. are we good? it takes ten seconds and it sends a message to everybody in the classroom what the teacher stands for. >> but they don't say it in front of the teachers as often as they say it away from the teachers and that involves the parents. everybody keeps saying the parents need to knee what their kids tell them. you're a parent it's your job to observe your child and know what they're doing. observe them when they don't think they're being observed. find out how they treat other people. i've had parents on the show that said my 5-year-old would never be aggressive with anybody else and i put him behind the mirror and let them watch and the kid is stabbing another kid

with a barbie doll like psycho, and they say i didn't know my kid acted like that. it is your job to see it. you heard that at columbine. they have armory under their bed. parents cannot just check out and say -- they didn't tell me. it's your job to find out. >> one of the things i'm hopeful for with our film and the conversation that we're having is that parents will feel empowered to have those conversations and not just afraid if their kids are a bully, but if their child is being bullied. >> they need to see what you saw. >> but hopefully, the empathy to have the third conversation. to have the fourth conversation. >> it can't just bun one conversation. >> the sixth conversation. and for fathers and sons, it maybe is great advice to say, go on and deck that bully and it will stop. but when it doesn't, and it's the second and the third and the fourth conversation, you know, how are you going to be able to

talk to your son? ? i want to bring in dr. maurice alias from rutgers university. it's been a year since tyler's suicide. what is the school done in the wake of that? >> rutgers has always valued the diversity of our student body and what happened with tyler was just an incredible strategy i can and a shock to us. but what we did since then is institute a few different things that are important. not only for our lbgq. but how to bring the students together for a higher purpose. the ish ssue of bullying and harassment has a lot to do with kids who have lost their way frankly, and we have tried to find a program called civic engagement where our students are able to come together, and working together for communities that really have a lot less than they do. and when we find that when we

bring the young diverse students together to do that, it just changes the way they relate to each other, and they come to different understandings of each other, and that is one of the important things that we have done. >> i also want to bring in zmeen and he is from the cartoon network and cnn who have teamed up with time, inc., to create a facebook app. explain what the app is. >> it's the "stop bullying, speak up" app available through facebook. it's a great platform where young adults, kids, adults, can get together and take a pledge to speak up to stop bullying and created a community where everyone can share resources so that we all can make a difference. today, 40,000 people have taken

the pledge to speak up against bullying and i'm really requesting that if anyone hasn't taken the pledge to please do so and hopefully, by taking the pledge, we're all able to speak up and stop bullying. >> thanks very much. >> if you or anyone you know is having trouble thinking about suicide or having thoughts like that, we have resources to help on the ac360.com page. this is not just a problem for the kids who are here and for their parents, this is a problem for all of us that all of us have to solve together. so much is at stake. don't let our kids down. bullying, it can stop here. thanks for watching. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com can i help you? yeah, can i get a full-sized car? forfor convertibles, please stepress star one.ing menu. i didn't catch that. to speak to a representative, please say representative now. representative. goodbye! you don't like automated customer service, and neither do we. that's why, unlike other cards, no matter when you call chase sapphire preferred, you immediately get a person not a prompt.

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