When a student fires shots in a school or commits suicide, the search for a bully is close behind.

Nearly everyone who has attended a school can recall someone being teased or picked on, but technology now gives bullies a way to inflict their torment into every part of a victim's personal life beyond the schoolyard.

It's as if the person who calls you names and makes fun of you at school is able to to follow you home, harassing you through texts and continuing to humiliate you in front of your peers on social networks. There are no longer any safe spaces to escape the threat of a determined and technologically armed mean girl or ruthless teen.

There isn't longitudinal data to answer the question of whether bullying is more pervasive now than it was in previous generations. But when it happens, it can be more relentless than before, and the awareness of the severity of damage that bullies can inflict has changed.

Stories like this are more often reported than when we were children:

Last month, seventh-grader Jose Reyes of Sparks, Nev. shot and injured two student and killed a teacher before killing himself. His parents said he had been teased about a speech problem. Students who knew him reportedly said sometimes he would cry and say people were calling him names, according to the L.A. Times. The paper reported that one witness to the shootings recalled Jose saying, "You guys ruined my life, so I'm going to ruin yours."

In September, 12-year-old Rebecca Ann Sedwick of Winter Haven, Fla. committed suicide after she was harassed in person and online by two other girls. The girls, ages 14 and 12, have since been charged with aggravated stalking.

In October, Jordan Lewis, 15, a sophomore at Carterville High School in Illinois, shot himself in the chest and left behind a note, which according to his father, said: "Bullying has caused me to do this. Those of you know who you are."

Nearly one-third of all school-age children are bullied every year, according to PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center. The vast majority find ways to cope, regardless of what emotional or physical scars are left behind. But that statistic is still an indictment.

Several anti-bullying organizations cite the statistic that harassment and bullying have been linked to 75 percent of school shooting incidents. Beyond the risk for violence and self-harm, students who are bullied are more likely to miss school or drop out altogether. Those who bully other children are more likely to have criminal records and a higher suicide risk as adults.

So, how can schools and families more effectively address the issue? After all, there will always be some form of social hierarchies and cliques in institutional settings like schools, prisons and corporations.

First of all, any adult should take reports of bullying seriously. Don't tell a victim to "just ignore it." Most students hide their troubles when they are being bullied, so if a child speaks up, listen and take action.

Keep an eye on your kids' digital worlds. Some school districts have resorted to hiring companies to monitor students' online activities and look for public threats and harassment. While this may invoke fears of Big Brother, students must be held accountable if they are cyberbullying a peer outside of school hours.

Schools should also be careful about the unintended consequences of some anti-bullying videos or programs. Brad Lewis, father of Jordan who committed suicide, has spoken out about an anti-bullying video shown at his son's school shortly before his death. It depicted a bullying victim's suicide, and he feels it may have influenced Jordan's actions.

Dr. Christine Moutier, medical director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, says she absolutely agrees that this is a valid concern. Research and studies have documented the phenomenon of suicide contagion.

"What we've proposed is that rather (than) highlight the stories that show the tragic and negative outcomes, which begin to link suicides and bullying ... choose people and films that model positive outcomes," she said. "It can absolutely be detrimental for a student who is watching that and is already vulnerable and being bullied. We are very worried that it creates added risk."

One of the most important messages we parents can share with our children is the power of the bystander: More than half of bullying situations stop when a peer intervenes.

Five months ago, I couldn't run around our cul-de-sac without feeling like my shins might crack. Pain pierced my ankles and knees after a block of hitting the pavement.

I refused to even describe my efforts as "running." I practiced a sort of continuous forward movement that seemed several degrees shy of a run. I prefaced any conversation about my training by announcing: I'm not a runner.

Under the influence of proselytizing "real" runners, however, I signed up for a half-marathon. I printed out a beginner's training schedule and committed to three times a week of continuous forward movement, plus at least one yoga session during the week.

And so began four and a half months of self-punishment.

The first few weeks, my workouts left me so sore I could barely walk the next day. I really wanted to quit, but I had told nearly everyone I knew that I was going to do this race, and I was too embarrassed to back out. People much older and larger than me lapped me around the neighborhood.

My children asked if I thought I might win the race I was planning to run: Not a chance, I told them. I was trying avoid finishing last.

It's hard to break out of decades of mental conditioning. My parents raised us to compete hard. If there was a measurable standard, we were expected to do far better than average. That easily measurable standard in running -- time -- forced me to confront that I was going to publicly compete in an activity in which I was certain to perform below the curve. That hurt much worse than my blistered feet.

Gradually, a strange thing happened. The distance I could cover with my continuous forward movement got longer. I began to learn what kind of aches and pains I could tolerate and keep moving through, and which meant I needed to slow down. I realized how much was out of my control every time I stepped outside the house to attempt a certain number of miles. Anything from the weather to road construction could impact how long it might take. I asked the experienced runners I knew for advice and shared my frustrations when it felt like I wasn't making any progress.

I didn't have the time to train like I would have wanted, but I did the best I could given my circumstances.

As my race rapidly approached, fitness blogger and mother of three Maria Kang blew up the Internets with a picture she posted of her very fit self in a sports bra and undies, surrounded by her three young children.

Judgment dripped from the "What's your excuse?" caption on her poster. There was an explicit message that anyone who doesn't work out (or look like her highly toned self) was just making excuses. Those of us living outside the fitness bubble know that is far from true: Not everyone has the support to be able to take time for themselves when they have the constant responsibility of caring and providing for young children.

Even though I had made exercise a part of my life since college, I took a complete hiatus for six years when I was pregnant, nursing and taking care of babies.

Those early years of having a newborn, nursing, expecting another child, and then taking care of both a newborn and a toddler left me barely enough time to shower, let alone hit the gym.

My husband worked long hours, and I didn't have my family in town to watch my children at a moment's notice.

Those weren't excuses, Kang. That was my reality.

It wasn't until they were both in preschool that I found my way back to the gym. It was difficult and painful to try to build up the stamina and strength I had lost.

And even after several years of consistently working out, the impending half-marathon filled me with nerves and apprehension.

The day of the race, I saw the thousands of people of all ages and abilities show up at the starting line. Who were these amazing, ordinary people about to push themselves so hard mile after mile?

And who were these thousands of amazing people volunteering along the route, handing out water and snacks, ringing cowbells, cheering and shouting encouragement? There were rows of strangers holding their hands out for high-fives and waving signs that made me smile: "You run better than the government." "Getting up early to make this sign wasn't easy, either." "When do we get to see the bulls?" "Strip tease by Channing Tatum ahead." (That was a lie, for the record.)

I had been wrong to worry about finishing last. As much as I admired and was in awe of those elite athletes finishing in front, I was inspired by those bringing up the rear. I have no idea what their journey was to get to that finish line.

But I knew where I had started, and I knew what it took for me to finish -- to run -- 13.1 miles.

Approaching the finish line, I spotted my favorite sign.

It read: "I'm proud of you, perfect stranger."

When my son was that magical age of 6, he only knew one way of baseball: the Cardinal Way. He had grown up in a cocoon of Redbird fandom. He had never met anyone at war with Cardinals Nation before.

So, it seemed strange to my then-first-grader when one of our closest friends came over to watch the playoffs and appeared to be actively rooting against our team.

We smiled at the innocence of his "How could this be?" reaction.

Our friend, Dave Shaw, said he was doing him a favor and imparting an important life lesson: There's a lot of different people in the world. You will encounter people who really don't like your team.

"I know everyone doesn't like the same teams," my son said recently. "They have their own teams they like, and we have our team we like. I don't think anybody hates the Cardinals. But I think there are some people who dislike the Cardinals. Because no one should hate a baseball team, even if they are rivals."

Oh, dear child.

It's one thing to open children's eyes to great rivalries born of great competitive spirits, but another to shatter their delusions with the hostility and contempt that is part of the conversation in some circles.

What role does hate play in modern-day sporting events?

Plenty of thoughtful parents have made the word "hate" verboten in their homes. Children can put the word "hate" to angry, upset feelings early enough, and parents spend much energy teaching them to self-regulate and cope with strong emotions. "Hate" is the new four-letter word. We don't want to raise a generation of haters.

When they're too young to understand the truly contemptible things in life, those things well-deserving of our hatred, it's best to shield them.

But where does the line get drawn when the hate is generalized and socially acceptable? After all, a great sports rivalry requires a great enemy.

It is possible to hate someone nicely?

"It's hate with a small 'h,'" Shaw said. "I have rooted against certain teams with every fiber of my being, but I don't think I could say it crossed into hate."

Plus, he said, in sports, "you are 'hating' an abstraction. It's not a real person or real thing."

Except when it is.

I recently tweeted a story about our team becoming "America's team," and a few people who disagreed responded with obscenities. And Deadspin, a sports and news site, incites a lot of Cardinals hatred, beginning with a post called "Why Your Cardinals Suck" earlier this month.

Those accustomed to "Midwest nice" have been taken aback by the rhetoric and intensity of hatred against our team. For help making sense of it, I turned to Tim Marchman, deputy editor of Deadspin. Marchman, despite his misguided sports loyalties, was part of my Michigan Fellowship class and watched the last Cardinals World Series win with us. Rest assured, he is not actually a blood-sucking vampire.

"I feel we are more articulating the building anti-Cardinals rage than fomenting it," he said. It's fun to laugh at Redbirds fans' earnest devotion, and mock the media narratives about "the best fans" and how the "Cardinals play the game the right way," he said.

"The nicer the team is and the better the fans are, the more it makes us want to shake our fists at them," he said. "The lack of anything offensive about the Cardinals is what is so offensive about them."

For the kids discovering this ugly side of sports, Marchman suggests parents embrace this moment: "Maybe it's a good thing this is happening to the Cardinals because it's an opportunity to teach kids there are socially acceptable ways for channeling antagonism. ... Just because you're really good at something, it doesn't mean everyone is going to pat you on the head and be happy about it."

I've seen the litany of responses from those wanting to defend the home team: from long-winded, rational explanations about why there is no legitimate grounds for this sort of hatred to telling ourselves to embrace the vitriol as part of the cost of dynastic pursuit.

Truth be told, that's not St. Louisans' style. We're not comfortable being the objects of derision for what we consider to be our area's bright shining jewel, which seems to bring out the best in everyone around here.

You can't enumerate all the reasons why our team represents The Good. It just makes the naysayers hate us even more.

The best response is the one we would want our children to emulate: Rise above, cheer for your team and ignore the haters.

Fittingly, Shaw, who helped challenge my son's childhood delusions, is a die-hard Red Sox fan.