Journal 5

How to Fight the New Bullies
By: Rosalind Wiseman

This article discusses how bullying in person is becoming the least of students and parents worries. Cyberbullying is the new trend and is possibly more damaging. Whereas a bully in school has to show their face while threatening or making rude remarks, the internet cyberbullying is mostly anonymous and is not as easily watched. Some examples given in the article were instant messaging cruel messages, taking degrading or embarrassing pictures of another student and posting them online or texting cruel messages via cell phone. Rosalind Wiseman states that there is hope within the educational system to put a stop to some of the cyberbullying. Vermont, specifically is creating new legislation for bullying laws because they had a suicide of a 13 year old boy, who had been bullied in person and online. This new legislation may allow school officials to become involved in discipling students for their off-campus bullying on the internet or cell phones if it is disrupting the learning of a fellow student. The advice that was given by Rachel Simmons, who wrote Odd Girl Out , was to students. She says to "be the same person online that you are in real life. If you wouldn't say it, don't send it." She also reminds that nothing on the internet is really confidential. A spokesperson for Stand Up!, Shanterra McBride, advises parents to "not be intimidated by technology. Sit down with your child and let him or her take you through Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube." By being on top of monitoring what your kids interests are on the web, you can ensure they are staying out of trouble online.

Question?
How common is cyberbullying?
Answer
According to the survey in the article, 90% of middle school students have had their feelings hurt online, 75% have visited a website bashing another student, 40% have had their password stolen and changed by a bully and only 15% of parents polled even knew what cyberbullying was.
Question?
What can parents do to stop this as much as possible?
Give boundaries to your children with the technology you purchase for them and always keep computers in family areas. As parents, we need to be monitoring what our children do online and save and print any evidence of cyberbullying.