Surviving Lunch

A must see movie! A real life story of one girls experience as she negotiates the halls of her new high school. Wonderful opportunity for families to watch together.

This movie is about the horrors of high school cliques. It gives insight into the bullying behind outbursts of not being able to take it one more second.

It's a great way to start a conversation with your kids.

Lesson learned: nobody has a perfect life, everyone is going through something and why it's so important to stand with the bullied kids.

It has guns and a scene of an attempted sexual assault, but it's thwarted before going anywhere. Be warned.

Overall, just talk to your kids. Their school lives may be very different from what you think.

I just watched this as part of a national training for school psychologists. It was definitely too intense for tweens and any teenagers who may have experienced similar violence, bullying, and assault. There were some awkward acting moments somewhat related to the script and a possibly less experienced cast and crew.

If you look at what the movie was intended for (educating and persuading adults) you can overlook the flaws. It was much higher quality than a TV after-school special, but definitely lower budget. It should inspire all community members to advocate for more mental health services in schools. It also reminds us that bullying behavior is often complex and not a simple issue.

It would help if schools provided better supervision of ALL school areas and improve how they teach and encourage student bystanders to stand up to protect, or at least report what they hear and see. Sadly, we also have adult educators, administrators, and community members who are complicit in the bullying by their inappropriate language/behaviors, inaction or careless indifference.

I would recommend watching this and working in your community with your schools to effectively address the traumatic experiences of "hurt" children (victims and some bully-victims).