Cyberbullying & Bullying-Related Suicides: 1 Way to Help Our Digital-Age Kids

Detachment from 'The Drama'

Each of these cases is highly individual, but what they all seem to have in common is the 24/7, non-stop nature of the harassment the teens faced – the tech-enabled constant drama of school life turning into 24/7 cruelty. Phoebe's and Hope's tragedies indicate an urgent need for all of us to help our children come up for air, to maintain some perspective about the "alternate reality" of school life, especially in the middle-school years.

Technology mustn't be the focus of either blame or solution development because it's not the source of the problem; social cruelty is. But technology – if not used with a sense of perspective or balance – can "tether" a child to the cruel behavior. I get that word from MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle, who refers to today's communications tools (the social Web, cellphones, etc.) as "tethering technologies" in her paper about "The Tethered Self." She discusses how they remove us from our physical surroundings. I think their constant use can also affect our sense of context psychologically too – everybody's, not just kids', but adolescents have a lot to deal with just developmentally, so perspective can be extra helpful to them.

We hear a lot that we need to think about the implications of giving our children mobile devices that make them as available to their peers as they are to us. But let's look at one of the implications: Kids' and their peers' moment-by-moment mood changes, blow-by-blow gossip, and good and bad behavior mutually accessible as long as their communications devices are on. In other words, constant drama – often heightened by kids who enjoy fueling it, whether for entertainment, as a prank, or out of malice.

How we can help

What we don't hear enough is that there are ways we – parents, school personnel, police, and policymakers – can help our kids and teens. We can help them...

* Get perspective and maybe a little mental detachment from peers as well as "the drama"
* Do the identity exploration that's a key task of adolescence as themselves," as individuals, and not only or always in relation to their peers
* Have a little time for reflection
* Realize the importance of self-respect and know they have our respect.

In other words, we can help them to be able – when needed – psychologically to disengage just so they can think straight and actually see that their life is not that drama at school or online, and they are never the person any bullies could ever make them out to be.

Tampa-area schools are discussing (I think much-needed) parent-notification rules, the Tampa Tribune reports and Massachusetts lawmakers are "stepping up efforts to pass an anti-bullying measure," the Boston Globe reports. These are important pieces of the puzzle, but I hope that school officials, legislators, and parents 1) don't create policy and law based solely on the worst tragedies and 2) do help children learn how to maintain perspective, self-respect, and respect for others amid the info and behavioral overload of the digital age. This is the protective nature of social-media literacy and citizenship – the new online safety.