A 10-year-old died by suicide. Her family is calling for more kindness.

In the days after her daughter’s death, Summer Bushman has found herself lingering inside the room where she last saw the fourth-grader. She sits in her daughter’s chair, runs her fingers along the hems of clothes, talks to the walls.

She tells her daughter in that empty space that she loves her. She tells her she misses her. But mostly, the mother said, she tells her: “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

On the morning of March 21, as Summer Bushman, 36, was rousing her children for school, she noticed the light was on in 10-year-old Autumn’s room. When she knocked on the locked door, she said, there was no answer. She knocked again. Then again. Soon, she said, she began to panic.

She broke open the door.

Inside, she found her daughter unresponsive, dead from an apparent suicide.

Autumn’s parents said questions remain, but that she had told them in recent months that she was being bullied. In the wake of her death, they have called for kindness. That message — and the shock over such a young child taking her own life — has ignited a growing movement in the family’s Virginia community. Strangers have bought “Be Kind for Autumn” shirts; small businesses and churches have hosted “Stop the Bullying” events; community members have planned a candlelight vigil and called for greater tolerance. At the end of this month, the mayor of a nearby town plans to host an anti-bullying forum to bring parents and school administrators together to brainstorm solutions.

It’s a message Autumn’s parents, Summer and Mark Bushman, believe their compassionate child would want spread.

“She really had a heart for people. She was the very definition of an empath,” Mark Bushman, 36, said. “She was always sticking up for someone else.”

A funeral to celebrate Autumn’s life was held in a Roanoke chapel last Saturday afternoon. The family opened the service up to the community and broadcast it live in the hopes that Autumn’s story might inspire a broader turn toward tolerance.

“She didn’t care about your race, your ethnicity, your religion,” Mark Bushman told the crowd at the funeral. “You might have something that society deems ugly or weird, but in her eyes — and God’s eyes — that’s beautiful. Because He does not make mistakes, and my daughter was always so good at seeing that. And I learned a lot from her in that regard.”

Autumn’s death is one of a growing number of suicides among children ages 8 to 12, according to research from the National Institute of Mental Health. The exact cause can be hard to pinpoint, but researchers have begun to explore links between increased social media exposure and access to technology.

Summer and Mark Bushman said they, too, wish they had more answers.

Although Autumn had confided in them that she had experienced bullying for months at school, they didn’t have a clear sense of what had started it or how bad it had gotten, they said. The family said they haven’t had a chance to sift through Autumn’s phone because the police took it shortly after her death.

A spokesperson for Roanoke County Police said that the investigation into Autumn’s death is ongoing and that police often examine devices to better understand the events leading up to a death.

Summer Bushman said she contacted her daughter’s school early on to report concerning behavior but, she said, she never received a clear explanation from the school — only that the situation had been “handled.” When she and Mark Bushman asked Autumn if they should do more to escalate their call for intervention, the parents said, their child begged them not to. She told them that she had already been called “a tattletale.”

The school district said in a statement that it was conducting a thorough review and would offer additional resources for students.

“We are incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of one of our students at Mountain View Elementary School. This is a tragic loss, and we stand in support of the family, friends, and Mountain View community,” the statement read. “Our schools take all reports of bullying and conflicts among students very seriously. Our schools educate students and respond appropriately to specific situations when we are made aware, including working with parents and families of students involved.”

Roanoke County schools spokesman Chuck Lionberger said in an email that every report of bullying is investigated. Cases are handled individually, he said, and schools always follow up with students and parents to let them know the outcome of an investigation. Lionberger could not comment on the specifics of Autumn’s case, but shared online bullying resources and a flier that he said is sent to parents.

“We continue to encourage parents to not give students access to smartphones and social media until age 14, to closely monitor online interactions, and to report any bullying concerns to the school so that we can work with parents to intervene,” Lionberger told The Washington Post.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bullying can increase suicide risk, though experts say bullying alone does not lead to suicide. Students who are bullied are more likely to be depressed and anxious and to have increased feelings of sadness and loneliness, research suggests.

According to data from the federally funded Institute of Education Sciences, nearly 1 in 5 students in grades six to 12 reported being bullied in 2022. Boys were more likely to report being physically bullied, while higher percentages of girls reported being the subject of rumors and being excluded from activities. The prevalence of smartphones and social media has made it even harder to escape, experts say, because bullies now have lines of communication that follow children home even after they leave school grounds.

Having access to a smartphone or a tablet also increases the likelihood that children may be exposed to more mature content that highlights issues like suicide.

Though Autumn’s parents did not allow her to have her own social media accounts, she did have a smartphone. About two months ago, as Autumn sat with her dad in his Jeep, she told him she had seen a video on YouTube about a teenage girl who took her own life.

“It felt like she was looking for answers to explain what she just saw,” Mark Bushman said.

He said they talked about it. He told her that sometimes people feel like there’s no way out of their pain, that there’s no other option. But, he said, he tried to emphasize: “When you’re in that moment, you may not be realizing, ‘Hey, I have a family that loves me that I would have to leave behind and who would be very hurt. I have all these exciting firsts coming up. I have my whole life ahead of me. This is really just the beginning.’ And I told her that if someone ever feels like that, what they really have to do is talk to somebody.”

He never imagined her questions were anything beyond a curiosity, he said. She seemed “totally normal” and active. Bright, bubbly, always the jokester among her siblings. She was athletic and driven. Competitive. Coordinated. A dancer and a runner and a cheerleader.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that her family said her demeanor started to change. She became more withdrawn, more quiet. She traded in her bright, colorful clothing for outfits with more muted hues that wouldn’t stand out at school.

But even that, the Bushmans said, hardly seemed like a cry for help.

“I remember when my 17-year-old went through a breakup that he took really hard and he had told the girl he couldn’t live without her, so we had a conversation about suicide,” said Summer Bushman. “And my 12-year-old was picked on pretty badly and I had her transferred to another school district, and I had talked to her about suicide. But I never talked to Autumn because I never imagined that that would be a topic that I would have to discuss with my 10-year-old.”

Pamela Hoffman, a psychiatrist and assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center, has been working in emergency departments for over a decade. In that time, she has noticed a significant increase in the number of children coming in for attempted suicides rather than thoughts of suicide.

“When someone is stating suicidal ideation, it’s something we can work on. We can try to catch them before a tragedy happens,” Hoffman said. “But once they’ve already tried, we’re now picking up pieces.”

Even more concerning, Hoffman said, is that the kids coming in are also getting younger.

“So we now know that kids, preteen kids, in the 8-to-12-year-old range, are dying by suicide more than ever before,” Hoffman said. “Especially girls.”

Autumn was laid to rest inside a small, baby-blue casket adorned with bright, fresh flowers. Her white-and-green cheerleader uniform hung nearby as video clips played showing Autumn throughout the years — tumbling, running, dancing, laughing.

One by one, former teachers, faith leaders, and relatives recalled the Autumn they knew: a chatterbox of a girl, fast to compliment others, and always, they said, bursting with energy.

When Autumn’s dad took the stage, he said he wanted to do more than remember the little girl he knew. He wanted to bring to life words he believed she would want to share.

His daughter hated how divided the world had become, he said. She would have asked: “Aren’t you tired of slinging dirt at each other?”

“I’m guilty of that,” Mark Bushman said. “But I think she would want you to know that you’re unique. There’s only one of you.”

He worries that children are learning the wrong things from the adults around them — that difference is bad or scary, that it’s being “used to pit kids against each other, and it’s being used to pit adults against each other.”

Now, as the family tries to forge a path forward without her, the Bushmans said, they are committed to spreading Autumn’s message: that uniqueness should be celebrated — not ridiculed.