By BERN MORLEY.
It’s a brave new world we find ourselves in as parents isn’t it? I’m talking about the cyber world. When I was a kid, bullying consisted of school yard fights and being locked out of the hall by the mean girls at lunch time.
Now there is this whole new world where our children are living out a large majority of their lives online. It’s constant, 24/7 and it involves Facebook, email, mobile phones, text messages, twitter, Instagram, the list goes on. But what makes it cyber bulling?
And how do we prevent our own children from not only being the victims, but also prevent them from being the unwitting perpetrators?
Cyber bullying is any kind of bullying or harassment that uses technology. This can be of the emotional, written and verbal variety, same as regular bullying. It’s not always blatant bullying, it can be as simple as being excluded i.e. being blocked, unfriended or even an obvious invite omission.
There have been some terrible and unfortunately catastrophic consequences where teens have been cyber bullied and I am constantly aware, as a parent of a new teen, to keep an ever watchful eye out for this.
So what can you do?
1. Make sure the computer they use can be seen or is in a public space. As tempting as it is to allow them take the laptop off to their bedroom so they can “do their homework” whatever it is they need to do can be done in a public space, not in private. Until they can pay for their own wi-fi, they will have to understand that you own the password and therefore, if they don’t like it, you can simply turn it off.