“I’m shocked and I’m mad and I’m sad. I don’t understand the mentality of kids torturing other kids, kids having to go through this. They don’t think they have anywhere to go to,” she told ABC News. “She was made fun of for being overweight, her red hair. She posted on my Facebook wall that she really wanted to come back, that the people were mean and cruel and she didn’t fit in.”

Paige suffered from bullying as well and became very close with Haylee, even leading Haylee to hyphenate Paige’s last name to hers on Facebook. “They were best friends,” said Paige’s uncle, Brett Behnke.

“She just didn’t want anybody to be sad for her,” Brett says of Paige’s suicide note. “She wanted everybody to pray for her and that’s the gist of it.” But why did this have to happen? Could it have been avoided?

“Encourage them to come to you if they suspect someone is bullying them,” psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert tells HollyBaby.com. ”Look out for the signs of a child being bullied: feeling upset when online, withdrawal, not wanting to go to school, sad, depressed.”

“We need to model and talk to our children about how do we solve problems? How do we handle things that are hard? How do we help each other and ourselves?” Cindy Manthey, of the Critical Incident Stress Management team at Haylee and Paige’s school explains.

This is a terrible situation that can be prevented if we realize what’s really going on with our children, especially when social networks like Facebook and Twitter are involved.

–Leigh Blickley

Get more:

1. 7-Year-Old Gets Plastic Surgery To Avoid Bullying — Can This Be A Good Thing?
2. Don’t Let Your Child Get Picked On And Teased. Here’s How To Protect Your Kid From Online Bullying
3. Mother Defends Son’s Right To Dress In Drag For Halloween. But Experts Worry She Went Too Far When She Labeled Him As ‘Gay’ On Her Blog