What is Cyberbullying?
- Sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images
- Posting sensitive, private information about another person
- Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad
- Intentionally excluding someone from an online group
How to Help Your Child
- What do I do if my child is experiencing cyberbullying?
- What do I do if my child is bullying other kids online?
Preventing Cyberbullying
- Bullying Prevention: At School and Online
- What To Do When Your Child is the Victim of Cyberbullying
- Cyberbullying & Bullying-Related Suicides: 1 Way to Help Our Digital-Age Kids
- Gay & Lesbian Youth Likely Victims of Cyberbullying
- What To Do When Your Child is the Victim of Cyberbullying
- The Internet at Home: Making it Work for You and Your Kids
- Cyberbullying: An Old Problem With a New Face
Possible Short-Term Effects:
- Anxiety
- Loneliness
- Low self-esteem
- Poor social self-competence
- Depression
- Psychosomatic symptoms
- Social withdrawal
- School refusal
- School absenteeism
- Poor academic performance
- Physical health complaints
- Running away from home
- Alcohol and drug use
- Suicide
Possible Long-Term Effects:
- High rates of depression
- Social anxiety
- Pathological perfectionism
- Greater neuroticism in adulthood
- Childhood bullying is a highly memorable experience and recollections of these events show no evidence of forgetting
Source: What Happens Over Time to Those Who Bully and Those Who are Victimized? Patricia McDougall, PhD, Tracy Vaillancourt, PhD & Shelley Hymel, PhD
- The victim has no place to hide; the bully can target them anytime and anyplace.
- Cyberbullying can involve a very wide audience (e.g. through the circulation of video clips on the internet), although the bully may not be aware of their reactions.
- The bully is relatively protected by the anonymity of electronic forms of contact, which acts as a safeguard against retaliation or sanctions.
- As with some indirect traditional bullying, the cyberbully does not usually see the response of the victim, changing the satisfactions or inhibitions normally generated by this.
- Adolescents who tended to spend more time online tended also to report that they cyberbullied or were themselves cyberbullied more frequently.
Additional Content
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1.
Safeguard Your Students Against Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying is on the rise, and states such as Arkansas and Washington have recently passed legislation to help curb...
Source: Committee for Children -
2.
A Parent's Guide to Facebook
Here's what every parent should know about privacy settings , preventing cyberbullying, and the do's and don'ts of...
Source: Education.com -
3.
Clicks & Cliques: *Meaty* Advice for Parents on Cyberbullying
Annie Fox's recent 55-min. interview with fellow educator and author Rosalind Wiseman at FamilyConfidential.com is a...
Source: Connect Safely -
4.
How to Stop Cyberbullying
Some practical advice on how to stop and prevent cyberbullying The first things you need to know about cyberbullying...
Source: Connect Safely -
5.
Tips to Help Stop Cyberbullying
Here are some tips if you or someone you know is being bullied - and advice for ending (or preventing) the cycle of...
Source: Connect Safely
Is my child cyberbullied?
Possible warning signs
- Avoids the computer, cell phone, and other technological devices or appears stressed when receiving an e-mail, instant message, or text
- Withdraws from family and friends, or acts reluctant to attend school and social events
- Avoids conversations about computer use
- Exhibits signs of low self-esteem including depression and/or fear
- Grades begin to decline
- Lack of eating or sleeping
Questions and Answers on Bullying
See recent questions and answers on dealing with bullying.
