“Being bullied over the internet is worse. It’s torment and hurts. They say “stick and stones may break bones, but words will never hurt me.” That quote is a lie and I don’t believe in it. Sticks and stones may cause nasty cuts and scars, but those cuts and scars will heal. “Insulting” words hurt and sometimes take forever to heal.”  A 14 year old female

“My favorite part of MySpace is how I can change who my friends are at all times. If I have a falling out with a friend, I can delete them.” A 15 year old male

“Some of my friends have My Space parties. Basically, a bunch of kids get together with their laptops and all sign onto MySpace and start surfing together. The party takes off when they start surfing kids’ profiles who aren’t present. You can imagine what a gossip it is.” A 16 year old female.

These revealing quotes are from the book, “Cyber Bullying: Bullying In The Digital Age,” by Limber, Kowalski & Agatston. They have conducted research and focus groups to produce a great book on this subject.  

We have used this series of blogs to outline the challenges facing young people and adults as they charter new territory in relationships and communication. If you are a parent/adult with the responsibility of caring for the well-being of young people here are some helpful tips if your child is being cyber bullied:

ü  Teach your kids to tell adults if they are bullied

ü  Work with your child’s school to ensure that anti-bullying program is in place

ü  Work with your child’s school, encouraging them to invite law enforcement to talk with students

ü  Watch for signs that your child may be the victim of cyber bullying.

ü  Discuss cyber bullying and internet safety with your child/children.

ü  Keep computers in common access areas of the home.

ü  Save all evidence of the cyber bullying, (messages, any email files, instant messaging or chat sessions, and download and save any blog or website material.

ü  Teach children not to respond or to say stop.

ü  Teach children not to give out any private information.

ü  File a complaint with your internet service and phone provider. (Try to identify the bully, through e-mail tracing or Police if appropriate.)

At STARS we strongly encourage families to utilize some of the helpful information that is available on the web. We published these yesterday but wanted to list again these great sources:

HRSA’s “Take A Stand. Lend A Hand. Stop Bullying Now.” www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov

SAMHSA’s “Make Time To Listen, Take Time To Talk … About Bullying.”

www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/15plus/aboutbullying And, www.isafe.org; www.cyberbully.org;  www.cyberbullying.org;  www.cyber-safe-kids.com

STARS can help you and your group gain knowledge of how to respond to cyber bullying and harassment, and if you would like to schedule a workshop on bullying or cyber bullying, our number is 615-279-0058.

 

We’ve all been taught by our parents and teachers there are basic rules for good manners in everyday life.  But, most likely our teenagers haven’t had manners lessons on the internet or netiquette.

There are some serious challenges facing young people and adults as both access to and advances in technology increase. It is a whole other ballgame when trying to communicate without the benefit of facial expression or being able to hear voice inflection. The guidelines for these good net manners are something adults should also remember as we sometimes stumble into an email argument unintentionally.  Most importantly, what can young people, teens and adults do to use technology in a healthy, respectful manner which will hopefully prevent cyber-bullying. Here a few key points for teens and young people:

 

• Guard contact information.  Don’t give your cell phone number, IM name or email address to anyone unfamiliar.  Do NOT share passwords!!
• Don’t respond, don’t interact and don’t engage
• Leave the area or stop the activity (i.e. chat room, news group, online gaming area, instant messaging, etc)
• Save all abusive emails, text messages, web postings, URLs, dates & times
• Block senders whenever possible
• Understand that online actions can carry over into the offline world.  They can cause serious real world damage, both emotional and physical
• Take a stand against bullying with your peers. Speak out whenever you see someone being mean to another person online or off
• AND, though it may seem difficult … Tell an adult if you feel threatened!

 

There is a great book by three individuals (Limber, Kowalski & Agatston) who have conducted research and focus groups with young people about cyber-bullying. Here are some of their quotes:

“My favorite part of MySpace is how I can change who my friends are at all times. If I have a falling out with a friend, I can delete them.” A 15 year old male

“Some of my friends have My Space parties. Basically, a bunch of kids get together with their laptops and all sign onto MySpace and start surfing together. The party takes off when they start surfing kids’ profiles who aren’t present. You can imagine what a gossip it is.”  A 16 year old female

At Students Taking A Right Stand (STARS), we strongly encourage families to utilize some of the helpful information available on the web. Here are some internet sites that can be very effective in helping adults and young people address bullying.

HRSA’s “Take A Stand. Lend A Hand. Stop Bullying Now.” www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov

SAMHSA’s “Make Time To Listen, Take Time To Talk … About Bullying.”

www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/15plus/aboutbullying And, www.isafe.org; www.cyberbully.org;  www.cyberbullying.org;  www.cyber-safe-kids.com

For more information on this topic, please contact STARS, stars@starsnashville.org or 615-279-0058.

From a webpage of a 14-year old girl, “It’s great! Over the internet you don’t really see the faces and they don’t see you. You don’t even have to look at their eyes and see their hurt.”

 

We’ve seen the funny TV spot where a teenager and her mother are communicating in code. If you have had a conversation with any young person lately via text messaging it is a new foreign language for adults!  Like this: r we bff? mos & pal. i w brb. Translated: Are we best friends forever? Mother is over shoulder and parents are listening. I will be right back.

Technology can be such a great asset for young and old but it opens up new venues for possible harm often in the form of cyber bullying. So what’s the extent of cyber bullying and social networking among young people?Research by Limber, Kowalski, & Agatston found 18% of middle school students had been cyber-bullied at least once in the previous two months, and 6% of them had been cyber-bullied two to three times a month or more often. Girls were twice as likely to cyber-bully as boys. Often the identity of the perpetrator was unknown or hidden.

Another study found one in three teens, and one in six pre-teens have been victims of cyber-bullying (Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2006). In another study 58% of the young people surveyed admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online while 53% admitted having said something mean or hurtful things to another online. Another key finding was that 58% had not told their parents or any adult (isafe survey, 2004).

These data point out other important issues about cyber bullying, often referred to as the great digital divide: 93% of parents say they have established internet safety rules while 37% of students report being given no rules from parents on internet safety. And, 95% of parents say they know “some” or “a lot” about where children go or what children do on the internet, but 41% of children do not share where they go or what they do on the internet with parents.

While there are similarities between more traditional forms of bullying, there are some serious differences. The facts are clear thus far that cyber bullying occurs more often at home, is more anonymous, involves a different power balance and is just as likely to be done by girls. One big difference includes the advent of social networking sites which have captured the time and interest of many children and adolescents.

Some of the most popular social networking site include myspace.com, friendster.com, xanga.com, facebook.com, bebo.com, andtagworld.com with MySpace having many times more subscribers than the other sites combined. And, while all these sites can be a means of communicating among adolescents and young adults, we need to understand some recent research on MySpace showing 57% of profiles included at least one photo; 5% of teens included photos of themselves in swimsuits or underwear; 9% included full names andless than 1% included a phone number. However, when extrapolated, this could include be 75,000 teens.

Finally, in another survey conducted by i-Safe America, Inc. in 2004, 63% of online teens receive emails from perfect strangers; 60% of these teens responded. About 87% of Americans can be identified by their birth date, gender and zip code and 80% of youth ages 7-18 receive inappropriate email on a daily basis, while 86% of girls polled report that they can chat online without their parent’s knowledge.

What can parents and young people do if they are experiencing cyber bullying? One of the first things that parents and adults can do is to get educated. And, STARS can help you and your group gain knowledge of how to respond to cyber bullying and harassment. Contact us at 615-279-0058 to schedule a workshop on bullying and cyber bullying.  

The St. Charles Journal reported “the suicide death of 13-year-old Megan Meier was due to MySpace taunting by adult neighbors rocked St. Charles, Missouri. In a parent’s worst nightmare, the mother of a neighbor girl that Meagan Meier was no longer friends with set up a fake MySpace account and proceeded to hound her to death. The woman, a male employee of her company, and her daughter all duped the unsuspecting Megan into thinking “Josh Evans” was real, conned their way into gaining her trust, and then viciously attacked an already emotionally vulnerable youngster.  The result? 13-year old Megan hung herself in her closet while her mom made dinner downstairs and talked with her husband about how the whole MySpace experience was troubling their daughter.”

In another case, Ryan Patrick Halligan was a Vermont teenager who died by suicide at the age of 13 after bullying from his classmates in real life and cyber bullying online. According to the Associated Press, “Halligan was repeatedly sent instant messages from middle school classmates accusing him of being gay and was ‘threatened, taunted, and insulted incessantly.’ “Ryan’s case has been cited by legislators in many states proposing legislation to curb cyber bullying.

Two tragic, untimely, and unnecessary events led to the awful deaths of two teenagers who had their entire lives before them. Megan and Ryan are two of the most visible examples of the tragic results of bullying and the rapidly growing occurrence of cyber bullying.

With accessibility and availability of technology for all of us, methods of bullying continue to evolve.  A wide variety of cyber technologies have provided children and adolescents new venues for bullying each other. In the United States, the most common type of cyber-bullying seems to be through instant messaging, where students send email or text messages with only a screen name for identification. Students have more access to cell phones, text messaging and cameras on cell phones being used to bully other students. Inappropriate information about students is also being the web in blogs, chat room, and social networking sites like Facebook.

So what exactly is cyber bullying?  It is defined as harassment and bullying that takes place online or through other mobile devices.Another way to look at cyber bullying is the act of willful and repeated harm inflicted through an electronic medium. Examples include:

•      Spreading rumors about someone through instant messaging

•      Threatening someone on a blog

•      Creating hurtful websites against someone

•       “Borrowing” someone’s (email address) and pretending to be them while posting a message

Cyber bullying is a serious threat to our young people and a rapidly spreading form of bullying and harassment. Parents and young people are often in need of education and training about this insidious form of bullying which is why it is one of the many issues in which STARS seeks to educate and help. If your parent group, faith community, school or civic organization would like to know more about the world of cyber bullying please contact us at 615-279-0058.

“I had really hoped that we could resolve this without a lawsuit, but if that’s what it takes to make the district take this seriously and change the way they handle these sorts of problems, we are ready to take it to that level.” (A parent of a bullied child)

Lawsuits, tragic and senseless deaths, families experiencing pain for a lifetime, grieving the horrible devastation of loss and suffering, communities and schools impacted forever  … is that enough?  After multiple acts of school violence related to bullying, harassment, and hazing  it should be evident that bullying is a big deal. 

However, in the midst of all the bad news there is some really good news in spite of what many might believe. The myth that most students who observe bullying don’t think they should get involved is in fact just that … a myth.  In fact, most students do not like the bullying and want it to stop. When asked a question, via one student questionnaire about bullying, “What do you do when you see a student being bullied by others”, the overwhelming majorityof students respond that they either do not like it and want it to stop or try to help.  This is extremely important because there is often a belief by those who are bullied that no one seems to care. Granted, there are far too many young people who do not act on their beliefs, but changes in attitudes lead to actions… and that is a huge part of the solution. Recent research in the US reveals that when children see others in pain, their brains respond as if it were happening to them. “This response, which also has been shown in adults, suggests that normal school-age children may be naturally prone to empathy. What it shows is that we have this inborn capacity to resonate with the pain of others. That’s probably a very important step toward empathy.”  (Jean Decety of the University of Chicago, whose study appears in the Journal of Neuropsychologia.)

Great news for everyoneas we seek solutions to the problem of bullying.

A critical step in stopping bullying is empowering disengaged bystanders to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. It’s one thing to have empathy for those being targeted by children who bully … it’s another to take action and get involved. Educating young people to take action is not easy … especially safely. But it is a huge part of the solution.

Because of these myths there have been many attempted efforts to stop bullying that have proved to be misdirections in bullying prevention and intervention. For instance using mediation or conflict resolution to resolve bullying situations is not a good idea … in fact these practices can sometimes be dangerous. Using Zero Tolerance policies for bullying is not a good idea, though having a strong non-tolerance for bullying is a good practice. Using group treatment for children who bully, where strategies such as increasing the self-esteem of children who bully others, proves to not be effective.

And finally, using simple, short-term solutions proves to be a bad idea. Decreasing bullying and increasing children’s civility and decency toward others requires a commitment from everyone … the school, the students, and most importantly the family. And, that is where STARS plays such an important role if schools and community organizations. At STARS we help students and teachers make the healthy choices which lead to the reduction of bullying. If STARS can help you, or your school or community organization addressing bullying please call us at 615-279-0058.