Whether it’s physical abuse, verbal abuse, or simply social exclusion, bullying has always been a problem for kids and teens. Unfortunately, the bullying that you may have seen or dealt with as a child is no longer the only threat facing our youth. As technology has evolved, so too have the means by which children can provoke, torment, and agonize one another. In the last five to ten years, a new form of bullying has emerged that has ruined countless kids’ lives and left parents feeling helpless. It’s called Cyberbullying and it’s one of the biggest problems facing youth online today.
Cyberbullying, like conventional bullying, typically involves an aggressor preying on a weaker individual to feel better about his or her own insecurities. Unfortunately, unlike conventional bullying, because it takes place primarily online and through other electronic communications such as text messaging, cyberbullying is more difficult to identify and prevent. By the time that many parents realize their child is being bullied, the psychological trauma that they have sustained is overwhelming. In some cases, the pain caused by cyberbullying becomes so severe, that it even leads to suicide, as in the tragic case of 13-year-old Megan Meier, whose death brought national attention to the issue.
Sadly, however, the attention surrounding Megan Meier’s death and the subsequent trial of her alleged tormentors, which ended recently with a dismissal, only lasted temporarily. In fact, just recently at the ReputationDefender Blog, we shared a study from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health that showed parents continue to treat cyberbullying as a secondary threat. That’s why we’re taking the time today to help you understand how to recognize the signs and symptoms of cyberbullying and the steps you can take to prevent it from happening to your children and other kids in your community.
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Keep your home computer in a central location.
It is increasingly common for teens to have their very own personal computers or laptops. While this presents many benefits for them as students, it also prevents parents from being able to effectively monitor their child’s Internet habits. If you keep the family computer in a public area of the house, it will be easier for you to keep tabs on what websites your child is visiting and how often.
Keeping your computer in a common area can also help you identify when your child is upset by something they’ve found online. During their teen years, children are still maturing emotionally. Often, rather than talking about what is upsetting them, they will try and work out their problems themselves and keep their feelings inside. If your child is dealing with their cyberbullying issues in the privacy of their room, you may not learn how deeply it is affecting their life until it is too late.
Join the Social Network Yourself – But in “Lurk Only” Mode
One of the best ways to understand what goes on inside of the social networking world is to join a social networking website yourself. If you use the same social networking site as your kids, you can keep a closer eye on their activities. There’s a good possibility that your child will bristle at accepting your friend request, but if you don’t bother them too much or encroach on their space, you should be okay.
Remember that although you are trying to protect your children, social networking sites still offer an important place for them to develop valuable social skills. If you are going to use your Facebook or MySpace to monitor your kids, we recommend going into “lurk” mode. If you constantly force yourself into your child’s conversations, there is a strong chance that you will drive them to create a new secret account that you cannot monitor as easily.
Talk to Your Kids Early and Often About the Internet.
Do your kids use Facebook? Are they on MySpace or Twitter? What are their usernames for these sites? Do they understand their privacy settings? There are hundreds of questions to ask your kids about their Internet use, and you should be asking every single one of them. While this may seem daunting, especially if you are unfamiliar with much of the Internet yourself, it is a crucial part of keeping your child safe online.
Help your kids understand how to recognize when they are being cyberbullied by teaching them what is and is not acceptable behavior online. Usually, this is common sense. For example, your child should already know it is not right to tell lies about people. Make sure that they understand it’s not right to tell lies about people online either. Conversely, if someone is spreading lies or rumors about them online, teach them that it’s okay to tell someone. Often, cyberbullying incidents escalate because a victim seeks to defend oneself, rather than reporting the attack.
Monitor Your Kids Online
Ideally, your kids will answer all of your questions openly and honestly. Unfortunately, anyone who has spent any time around teens knows that the perception of privacy is incredibly important. That’s why it is important to consider investing in computer monitoring tools. There are numerous software programs that will allow you to limit the time your child spends on the computer and also monitor exactly what sites your child logs in to.
Unfortunately, knowing where your child goes online is less important than knowing how your child acts online. What most web tracking software does not do is monitor the actual content about your child on the web. That’s why we created MyChild here at ReputationDefender. With MyChild, you can see where your child’s name is appearing online and in what context through easy-to-read monthly reports.
If you don’t want to invest in a product to help monitor your child online, you can use Google Alerts to send you a daily e-mail whenever your child’s name gets mentioned. While this is effective on a basic level, a Google Alert does not effectively search the Invisible Web, where the majority of the information your child might be sharing actually exists.
Some parents may be concerned that they are “spying” on their kids, but that’s an oversimplification. Being a “spy” implies that you are only interesting in finding something bad. Be honest with your kids and tell them that you will be checking in on what they do online from time to time. Hopefully, their awareness of your presence will be enough to modify their behavior.
Work With Your Kids’ Teachers and Other Parents
Cyberbullying is rarely a problem that affects only one child. That’s why you should consider reaching out to others in your community to help develop a network of adults who can work together to help prevent cyberbullying.
Because most cyberbullying incidents involve other students anyway, it is perfectly appropriate to get your school district involved. If your child suspects who the bully is, you can tell school administrators and they can arrange an intercession. At the very least, they can monitor your child more closely to make sure the bullying doesn’t continue during school hours. If the bullying is happening during school hours and on the school’s computer network, it may even be possible for the school to track down the bully and deal with the problem directly.
If you yourself know who the cyberbully is, do not be afraid to contact his or her parents to try and resolve the issue yourself. The odds are good that they do not know that their son or daughter is a cyberbully and they will want to discuss the problem with them directly. Conversely, however, if you don’t have any substantial proof that a particular child is responsible, it may be a bad idea to confront the parents directly. Consider instead calling them over the phone or e-mailing them and respectfully asking for their assistance.
Teach Your Kids to Keep Their Personal Information Private
One of the cruelest forms of cyberbullying occurs when a bully hijacks another student’s account, locks them out, and then pretends to be the victim. By the time your child has regained control of their account (if they ever do), their name and reputation could have been smeared across the Internet, potentially hurting their chances of getting into college or finding a job.
To help ensure that your child never has their account hijacked, teach them the importance of keeping their personal and private information (such as their birth date, phone number, and address) out of their social networking profile. Additionally, work with your child on creating a super strong password that none of their classmates would be able to guess. Some specific tips include using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers. Making a pnemonic phrase into a password is also a good option (ex. “I, John Brown, was born at 5:00 in the AM” becomes “IJBwb@5itAM”)
For more advice, visit the ReputationDefender Blog where, this past summer, ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik shared a number of tips to help create a strong password.
Know Your Legal Rights
In some cases, especially when cyberbullying involves physical threats of violence, pornography, or severe harassment, it is not out of the question to contact the police. While this is certainly not advisable under all circumstances, knowing your child’s legal rights as a victim of cyberbullying is very important. Not all states have specific criminals laws governing acts of cyberbullying, so you should check with your local police department for more information.
If there is no criminal law protecting cyberbullying in your jurisdiction, there may be a general law covering bullying. Additionally, in some situations, it is possible to sue the bully or their parents in civil court. The website of the Health Resources and Services Administration, which is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has many good resources explaining your legal rights, including a map showing which states have general bullying laws and which do not.
Bringing an attorney or police officer into the situation is a big choice, so we would advise not doing so lightly, but if you believe that the bullying in question has reached a severe enough level, it is worth considering all of your options.
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Although it is a slow process, people are beginning to see the ramifications of cyberbullying and working together to fix the problem. Just recently, MTV launched a multi-year campaign to help teens deal with cyberbullying problems called “A Thin Line.” Besides the MTV campaign, there are a number of other organizations working toward resolving the issue of cyberbullying, including one of ReputationDefender’s partners, the Internet Keep Safe Coalition.
While the work that these organizations are doing is invaluable in helping the world understand cyberbullying, the real change needs to happen at an individual level. Taking time out of your day to talk to your child about the web and the dangers of cyberbullying is an important step toward protecting their lives and the lives of all their peers.