Bullycide, incidents of bullying culminating in suicide, has claimed five lives this month alone. While Rutgers student Tyler Clementi lost his life to homophobic cyber-bullying, 11-year-old suicide victim Ty was harassed to death. With a spate of reports in the media about shockingly young children succumbing to peer bullies and widespread reports of gay teen bullying, it is time to do a reality cheak on child ethics in a cybernetic world, where a kid’s self-confidence can take a bashing after virulent taunts online.

Spare the mouse and save the child, would you say? With the body count rising, parent and student communities are on a vigil to counter harassment, online or otherwise. Four recent suicides came after taunts and jibes about sexual orientation. In post-Stonewall 2010, it is a Stone Age atavistic trend hard to fathom, showing the fight for tolerance is very much on.

Parents of differently abled children had a horror-story to tell, just like Ty Smalley’s grieving father Kirk Smalley,who is now on a mission to raise awareness to protect children against bullying. James Willie Jones got understandably livid with rage when his daughter who is in sixth grade and has cerebral palsy, was taunted on the school bus.

Kirk Smalley, the devastated father of 11-year old Ty is now mulling a parent action group and warns that they should watch out for signs of children being bullied, which might not be tell-tale in inscrutable kids. Smalley appealed parents to reach out to their kids and take action before it was too late.