Who among us hasn’t secretly or openly cheered for the lead character Ralphie in the classic holiday movie A Christmas Story, when after weeks of tormenting by a much larger, older bully, something snaps and little Ralphie turns the tables. Ralphie gives the bully a taste of his own medicine, piling on and punching the leering Scut Farkus over and over until he’s literally dragged off the sobbing bully by his own mother.
Perhaps the guilty satisfaction that comes from watching that scene has its roots in our own childhoods. The American Justice Department estimates that 1 out of 4 kids gets bullied during adolescence. That means 25 percent of us went through adolescent hell. Sadly, the statistics are getting worse, not better. Now not only physical confrontations occur, but bullies have taken their vendettas online, picking fights and setting up reigns of terror there as well. Cyberbullying is the equivalent of modern bullies’ New Wave music, and the Internet is their new playground.
According to the website Bullying Statistics, cyberbullying can take many forms, including:
- Sending mean messages or threats to a person’s email account or cell phone.
- Spreading rumors online or through texts.
- Posting hurtful or threatening messages on social networking sites or web pages.
- Stealing a person’s account information to break into their account and send damaging messages.
- Pretending to be someone else online to hurt another person.
- Taking unflattering pictures of a person and spreading them through cell phones or the Internet.
- Sexting or circulating sexually suggestive pictures or messages about a person.
Today’s teens, constantly connected as many are to social media, are more vulnerable to bullies than ever. The truth is that modern times and cool electronic gadgets are a double-edged sword. Not that many years ago, kids only had to avoid bullies in their neighborhoods or schools. Now they have to worry about bullies on the other side of the world.
For parents, this presents a scary and frustrating challenge. How can they help their kids evade online bullies?
The National Crime Prevention Council has some good tips for parents to minimize or prevent cyberbullying. They suggest the following:
- Keep your home computer in a busy area of your house.
- Set up email and chat accounts with your children. Make sure that you know their screen names and passwords and that they don’t include any personal information in their online profiles.
- Regularly go over their instant messenger buddy list with them. Ask who each person is and how your children know him or her.
- Print out a list of commonly used acronyms in instant messenger and chat rooms and post it by your computer. Netlingo suggests the Top 50 Internet Acronyms Parents Need to Know.
- Discuss cyberbullying with your children and ask if they have ever experienced it or seen it happen to someone.
- Tell your children that you won’t blame them if they are cyberbullied. Emphasize that you won’t take away their computer privileges this is the main reason kids don’t tell adults when they are cyberbullied.
Read more here and here about how families can combat cyberbullying on their own turf.
