What's the right way to handle child bullying?

For some reason schools suck at preventing bullying by some students upon others.  In some cases, the student being bullied is so weak mentally that he/she succumbs to the attacks with desperate acts including suicide.  It's a real concern for any parents.  One thing I know for sure is that you cannot legislate it away because it is just herding nature to bully.  It's how the herd of wild horses establishes its pyramidical pecking order.  And you really can't fight your children's battles as this lady recently found.

Unless you have the ability to home school (which is very good but also has social downside), the best way to deal with it is through knowledge and training.  The first thing you must somehow communicate to kids is that other kids might not be so quick to attack as an individual but when more than one bored kid is present, they will seek someone weaker to pick on in order to move themselves up the hierarchy.  So kids need situational awareness.  If they find themselves isolated from authority and in the presence of other stronger kids, don't trust the situation.  In a school situation it can be difficult to practice this kind of danger avoidance but at least a kid should know it is the first option.

Sooner or later, however, the kid is not going to be able to run away.  And in that case every kid should know some basic self defense and be required to practice at least once a week.  Learning to fight will, at the very least, give the kid more confidence and more ability to withstand the mental anguish of being bullied.  When kids kill themselves it is often due to fear, despair and a complete and utter feeling of helplessness.  A kid that can inflict some damage in self defense, or even win the scuffle, is not going to feel helpless.  Also, if other kids know your kid has had some training (i.e. karate school patches on their backpack, etc.) they are much less likely to risk a physical altercation which could show that the victim is actually more powerful than the attacker.  A bully simply does not want to risk his reputation for toughness by getting his ass kicked.

Child bullying is no different than adult crime in that you cannot really outsource the defense of it to a third party reliably.  The authority, be it parents or school, simply cannot be there exactly when needed.  Bullies know how to hang back and wait for vulnerable times.  So the kid must be made to understand that every person has a requirement and responsibility to self to be able to fend off dangerous situations in life.