If you have young daughters, you might want to mentally prepare now for what is to come when they enter middle school and high school. Certainly, traditional bullying has been a problem in schools – and especially among young girls – since the dawn of time, but recently, a new form of bullying has emerged and shows no signs of letting up any time soon: cyberbullying. With kids getting online younger and younger these days, and some teachers even requiring social networking as part of homework assignments, it is no surprise girls are taking to their computers to attack each other. But conquering cyberbullying together with your daughter is not as difficult as winning at aa lottery. In fact, if you work with her to understand how harmful bullying of any kind, for any reason can be, she will be thankful you took the time to help her.
Today, it is easy for kids to hop online and create pseudonyms to push others around and make threatening comments over the Internet. Now more than ever, children are emboldened by the sense of anonymity and invincibility that comes with online access – and are becoming more and crueler as a result. It is absolutely imperative that you have frequent discussions with your girls about the hurtfulness of online cruelty and how it can affect others. Even more important is finding out if your child might be a victim of cyberbullying – in which case you may want to seek advice from your child’s school guidance counselor on how to best approach the situation
Bullying – particularly the anonymity of cyberbullying – can be a difficult monster to overcome in your children and especially your daughters. But if you stay hands-on and know what your kids are doing and where they are going online, it can help to quell the problem before it becomes too large.
