Cyberbullying

What is cyberbullying?
"Cyberbullying" is when a child, preteen or teen repeatedly posts hurtful and disparaging remarks using the Internet, or mobile phones to publicly or privately cause that person grief, including:
•    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 (Willard, 2005)

The psychological pain of cyberbullying is every bit as real as regular bullying and can cause irreparable damage to a young person’s reputation, friendships and emotional health.

Who Are The Victims and Perpetrators of Cyberbullying?
Girls were about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying.
Of those students who had been cyberbullied at least twice in the last few months; 62% said that they had been cyberbullied by another student at school, and 46% had been cyberbullied by a friend; 55% didn't know who had cyberbullied them. In a recent study of students in grades 6-8 (Kowalski et al., 2005):
Tips for Parents – Preventing Cyberbullying
Adults may not always be present in the online environments frequented by children and youth. Therefore, it is extremely important that adults pay close attention to cyberbullying and the activities of children and youth when using newer technologies.

STOP, BLOCK AND TELL - If you are targeted by a cyberbully:
•    STOP chatting with your cyberbully. Take 5! to calm down.
•    BLOCK the cyberbully or limit all communications to those on your buddy list.
•    TELL a trusted adult, you don't have to face this alone. Then report the harassment to the IM client or IP company and report cyberbullying to wiredsafety.org, which launches an investigation to help you stop your cyberbully from striking in the future.
Learn more about stopping cyberbullying

Ten Steps for Families  to Stop Cyberbullying