Tracy Fortier?s daughter, Emily, always loved school. But when the six-year-old began making up reasons to avoid going to class, throwing tantrums in the morning and deliberately being slow so she would be late, Fortier knew something was going on. She soon learned that a little girl in Emily?s class had been making up lies to get her daughter in trouble and ostracizing her from friends, telling them not to play with her because she?s ?weird, bossy and gross.? School administrators said it was just two little girls not getting along, but Fortier could see the toll it was taking on her daughter.

?At first, Emily would get bullied maybe once or twice a day, but it got worse each year, to the point where she was coming home every day in tears, not wanting to eat, and would go to her room crying. My bubbly little girl was depressed,? says the Mattawa, Ont., mother. As it turns out, repeated bullying can actually be as damaging as other forms of abuse. ?Victimization doesn?t strengthen most children; it breaks them down,? says Tony Volk, an associate professor of child and youth studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. Research shows that chronic victimization impacts kids’ self-esteem by causing them to internalize negative messages about their own worth, feel inadequate, blame themselves and think negatively. Child psychologist Joanne Cummings, director of Knowledge Mobilization at PREVNet (Promoti...