According to a recent article published in the Courier Journal, “bullying is increasingly migrating from the school yard into cyberspace, experts, educations, and students say.” Parents often do not know that their child is a victim of cyberbullying, or that their own child could be a bully. One reason for this is parents are usually not as technologically savvy as their teens, and therefore are not monitoring their children’s internet usage. Ask to see your child’s Myspace profile to ensure appropriate information. Warn your teen that potential employers and college recruiters may access these profiles to check character qualities. 

What are some common cyberbullying tactics parents should know about?

• Stealing someone’s online name and using it to write nasty rumors, comment, or spread gossip.
• Altering someone’s message or doctoring photographs to say something different or poke fun at a person.
• Secretly recording conversations using your cell phone, then playing the recording back for the person being discussed.

Source: ABC PrimeTime “What Parents Need to Know About Cyberbullying”

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Dealing with Cyberbullying

Here are some ways for parents and students to deal with cyberbullying according to I-Safe and the US Department of Health & Human Services:

Suggestions for Parents when Dealing with Bullying and Cyberbullying

How to Stop or Remove Cyber Info

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Cyperbullying Statistics from I-Safe

• 22% of students know someone who has been bullied online.
• 19% of students admit to saying something hurtful to others online.
• 12% of students have personally become upset by strangers online.
• 90% of middle school students have had their feelings hurt online.
• 75% have visited a web site bashing another student
• 40% have had their password(s) stolen and changed by a bully

Only 15% of parents polled knew what cyberbullying was!

• Data based on 2005-06 i-Safe survey of 13,000 students in grades 5 to 12. 

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Consequences of Cyberbullying

• Youths who are harassed are almost three times as likely to carry a weapon to school.
• Students who are harassed are more likely to report being part of a gang.
• Harassed students were much more likely to report engaging in self-endangering or harmful behaviors, including a dramatic increase in heavy drug use; they are also twice as likely to consider and/or attempt suicide.

Seattle and King County Department of Public Health in Washington State
(Public Health Data Watch, 2002)

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