Campaign Targets Bullying of Children with Special Needs

Why We Worry: Here's some depressing reading for your Tuesday afternoon -- a report on bullying of children with special needs, with statistics and heartbreaking stories that will make you want to think seriously about homeschooling. It's the jumping-off point of a campaign called "Disable Bullying" that's asking us to do exactly the opposite, though, and put our kids in the spotlight and in the community and at the front of the assembly to say loud and clear that bullying of kids with disabilities is a civil-rights issue, a real problem to be addressed, and not at all okay. I was in on a press-conference call today with Timothy Shriver of Special Olympics, Anthony Shriver of Best Buddies, Lauren Potter of Glee and her mother, and others interested in protecting kids with special needs from bullying, and I'm excited to see how this campaign develops.

For now, in addition to downloading the "Walk a Mile in Their Shoes" report on the AbilityPath.org site, you can read lots of other good articles about combating bullying and watch a video with Lauren Potter and her mom, Robin Sinkhorn. And on this About.com Parenting Special Needs site, you can bear witness to bullying by filling out a Readers Respond form about your child's experience. Time to start making some noise.

_{Image courtesy of AbilityPath.org}