Cyberbullying: what you can do

The Bully in the Backpack is a valuable, balanced article that I highly recommend all parents and teachers read - show it to your teen too!

From a parent's perspective, one of the most important lessons I took from this article was that many teens view their parents as technologically incompetent and prone to over-reacting. Therefore, they often prefer to suffer cyberbullying in silence rather than tell a parent out of fear that the parent will take away their cell phone or kick them off social networking sites.

Instead, we should help young people learn to "stop, block and tell": stop responding so they do not escalate situations, block the perpetrator, and tell an adult. Technology is a daily reality in young people's lives. As in many other situations, they must learn to behave safely and responsibly rather than eschew the tools altogether.

The article also features many useful links to sites for kids of all ages, parents and educators.

Want to read and discuss a great book? Check out The Truth about Truman School by Dori Hillestad Butler, a great read for students in grades 5-8 about an online middle school newspaper that starts off with good intentions but rapidly spirals out of control.