Students Learn Valuable Lessons About Bullying From Ryan's Story

As images of his late son Ryan flashed on the screen behind him, John Halligan told the students of Hasbrouck Heights of the morning of Oct. 7, 2003 when his life changed forever.  The day that his 13-year old son committed suicide.

Emotion could clearly be heard in his voice as he told the students of how he desperately rushed home to Vermont from a business trip to be with his family.  The only thing that kept running through his mind was “Why?”

Halligan led the students through a powerful discussion about the bullying events that occurred in his son’s life, the mistakes that were made in handling it and understanding of what needs to be done to combat bullying. The PTSA for the middle school and high school brought Halligan to the school to present his talk to all students from grades 6 to 12.

“I don’t believe I can stand here and touch every heart and mind in this room but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that at least one person will take this to heart, walk out of here and go up to someone and say ‘I am sorry for the way I treated you’,” Halligan told the students. Many students and the adults in the room were touched by Halligan's story as many went up to him after the discussion to give him their condolences. Some even hugged him.

One of the more valuable lessons the students learned from Halligan’s discussion is that the bystander plays an important role. These kids that bully do it for an audience, Halligan said, but if a friend of a bully were to have the courage and maturity to tell that person to stop, it could really help the situation.

“You guys own this. We are never going to solve this problem without your help. I beg you to do the right thing. You have the most power and the most influence,” Halligan said. He understands that many children are afraid to speak up to a bully for fear that they will become victims however if such  a thing occurs the bully was not a true friend to begin with and also a parent and the school system should be notified.

The students paid close attention as Halligan went through Ryan’s Story. He spoke of Ryan’s triumphs in his early years as he had some language and motor skill delays which he overcame, improving so much that by the time he entered fifth grade he no longer needed to be in special education.

As Ryan still struggled some in school, he began to be picked on by a bully and that bully’s friends. He and his wife were aware of it and told Ryan that the bully likely had his own issues and suggested he ignore him. For the remainder of the fifth grade into sixth grade the problem seemed to have stopped.

At the start of seventh grade Ryan one day told them, “I hate that school. I hate that school. I never want to go back there” begging his parents to home school him or move to another town.  The bullying was back.  

Halligan suggested going into the school to talk to the administrators but Ryan begged him not to for fear that things would get worse. Instead Ryan took an interest in taebo kickboxing. Halligan helped encourage it and the two worked together every night training. One day Ryan and the bully fought it out and it appeared that the problem ended right there. Shortly after Ryan even told his dad that he was actually friends with the bully.

Halligan questioned this but Ryan was confident that there were no more problems and his mom and dad backed off knowing that if Ryan needed their help he would come to them.

They would have never suspected that Ryan would soon end his life.

Halligan said he realizes now that it wasn’t just one person being mean to Ryan that led him to end his life but that he died of an illness – depression which went untreated “like a snowball that started in the fifth grade and grew into a boulder that finally crushed him. “

He only wishes that he had the chance to teach Ryan something that he learned when he was in high school from one of his favorite teachers. After learning of a former students’ suicide she had said, “Kids please don’t ever forget this- you can always turn an ink spot into a butterfly. You can always turn a mistake into a lesson learned. You can always turn a bad situation into something good.”

Halligan looks back on the many things that he has learned since Ryan died such as teaching him to box was never the right thing for his son. “He was kind. Sensitive. That’s why he got bullied. They like to bully those they can get a response from. [That bully] took advantage of my son that way.”

There is no greater pain than for a parent to lose a child, Halligan said. He told the students “ you are loved beyond belief. Don’t ever believe for a second that you don’t matter and that no one would miss you if you are gone.”

“He got caught up with the people who didn’t like him but forgot about the people who loved him the most,” he continued.

In the days that followed Ryan’s death, Halligan and his wife searched desperately to find a suicide note or any possible clue as to what led to this. Overtime he found out through Ryan’s classmates and through records on the computer that Ryan had been spending the summer months between seventh and eighth working to defend himself against a rumor that he was gay, started by the same kid who started bullying him since fifth grade, Halligan said.

Through sorting through Ryan’s computer files, Halligan also learned that his son had been spending a lot of time online chatting with a young girl. Halligan said the conversations appeared to have taken on a boyfriend/girlfriend feel. However this girl would later tell Ryan that she was only kidding and wanted to nothing to do with him. She had called him a loser.

That was the last day of Ryan’s life. 

As he continued to learn about the events that were going on in his son’s life, Halligan began to take action. He went to a state representative who agreed that laws against bullying in the state were inadequate and in 2004 the Vermont Bullying Prevention Law was signed.

One day Halligan finally dealt with the bully. Angered by everything he knew and even the latest news from friends that now this bully was calling his late son “weak” Halligan was so full of rage he went to the kids home and asked to speak with the parents. The bully was brought into the room and when he learned who Halligan was “it looked as though he was going to faint.” At first the youngster denied the accusations but then began to cry and told Halligan how sorry he was.

Halligan said he refused to believe that this kid was truly heartless and was without soul and rather just a 13-year old kid trying to act tough. “Hearing that kid say how sorry he was meant a great deal to me,” he said. He then regretted not having knocked on that door a few years earlier when Ryan was in fifth grade as then maybe things would have been different.

Halligan has been sharing Ryan’s Story with school students since 2005.  More information can be found on is website.