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If your child is getting cyberbullied, what can you do to help? Would you call on your child’s school to unravel the complicated drama that inevitably ensues with a bullying incident? Is school the best authority over these matters?
Bullying has become a wholly different thing than it was perhaps when you were bullied in your youth. Back in the day (meaning the pre-cell phone, pre-social media era) if your group of on-again-off-again friends decided you were off-again, they got together at lunch time and sat at a different table where there was no room for you. Or they told your boy-crush that you were crushing hard on him even though you swore them to secrecy. You suffered the day in school and maybe, if it happened to be on a Friday, your so-called friends had a sleepover without you and called you up to let you know that they were all at the ring leader’s house ... and you weren’t. Your angst, anger and hurt was extended all the way through a pint of ice cream, but not much past the weekend, as your friends remembered that your group science project was at your house and it was due on Monday. So they got over their funk, and you got over your hurt. Everyone remembered why you became friends in the first place as you finished your project together. And all was well again. (Did I just tell way too much about my middle school self? Well, perhaps, but you get the point ... )
This pain and misery lasted a day, maybe two. Nowadays, with the help of technology, bullying has taken on a whole new character that is meaner, wider spread and longer lasting. Kids are hijacking the social media of others and saying harmful things in their stead. They are posting derogatory and hurtful comments on Facebook and Formspring. They are spreading unauthorized photos and video far and wide on cell phones and the Internet.
And with an impact that is so much more profound, before parents can even help their children deal with the pain, alienation and the utter blow to their self-esteem, they just want to know how to make it stop. We parents want to end the suffering before a tragic outcome ensues like it did for Megan Meier, Phoebe Prince and Alexis Pilkington, three cyberbullied girls who committed suicide . Often the first place parents turn is to their child’s school. Even when a cyber bullying incident starts outside of school, it usually shows up on campus in some form. Either the parties involved are in school together or the incident (or series of incidents) has spread virally by Internet and cell phone to other students. So parents contact their principal to “handle it.” It seems the logical choice -- school is where your child spends most of his or her day, often the school has authority over the parties involved, and a school’s discipline will likely be quicker and less intrusive than the police. So many parents ask for and expect the school’s help.
The increased incidence of cyberbullying is creating a quandary for school administrators, because policies and laws are murky with regard to investigating and disciplining the bully. Really, since this form of bullying is so new, everything about cyberbullying is murky and subject to interpretation. Jan Hoffman at the New York Times takes on the subject of cyberbullying and schools with impressive depth in her article, Online Bullies Pull Schools into the Fray. According to the article, school administrators across the country are inundated with incidents of student conflict and unrest as a result of text messaging and social media. When a situation turns ugly, since neither school policy nor the law is clear about what a school administrator should do; the choices are difficult and heart-wrenching. If an administrator decides to take a hands-off approach, she risks allowing an incident to spiral out of control when she may have been able to stop or
