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Cybersocializing, cyberbullying: Where are the parents?
For kids and teens, the online social scene is a little like what happens when 18-year-olds go off to college. Suddenly there's a lot of freedom; people get experimental socially. Most of what happens is relatively harmless, some not. What's different about the online scene is, the experimentation starts at a much younger age and - to an even greater degree - there are no grownups around.
What I mean is, so far...
The thing is, there's nothing private about it. It's all going on in a public forum, the Internet, and the youngest online socializers (kids 9-14) generally don't understand the implications. They don't understand that when they post text and pictures involving peers in a public forum it can be even more hurtful, it can spread far beyond their circles, and it can be nearly impossible to take back. That's why parents need to know what's going on and help our kids get some street smarts.
- Parents and educators have "few clues" about what's going on in the free- wheeling world of teen cybersocializing (Xanga.com, LiveJournal.com, Blogger.com, chat, email, IMs, file-sharing, etc.)
- There's an unwritten rule there that what happens online stays online (teens are reluctant to fill us in)
- Some of us parents even agonize about whether we should respect their privacy and not even go there (see "Daughter's blog, mom's dilemma").
To that end, I interviewed Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use (CSRI). Nancy, is also a mother of three, has taught children with behavioral difficulties, and has a background in computer and copyright law, as well as education technology.
She knows better than anyone that there's very little research on this subject (though there's plenty of anecdotal evidence - see links to news reports below). However, a recent nationwide survey of children and pre-teens by i-Safe found that 57% of kids in grades 4-8 said someone had said hurtful or angry things to them online, 13% "quite often"; 53% admitted to saying mean or hurtful things to others, 7% "quite often"; 35% had been threatened online, 5% "quite often"; 42% had been bullied online, 5% "quite often"; and 58% had not told their parents or another adult about receiving mean or hurtful comments. In the UK, 33% of 9-to-19-year-olds who use email, chat, IM, and/or texting phones at least once a week "have been sent nasty or hurtful messages, and only 4% of parents say their child's been bullied online, according to very recent research from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Nancy offers a few explanations for the cyberbullying phenomenon: First is the absence of adults I mentioned. The Internet is "their thing," kids think - and they're right, in the way they use it. Even grownups who visit political blogs or instant-message with colleagues at work use these technologies a lot differently from the way kids do.
Second is a kid version of free-speech rights - "this sense that the full disclosure of your thoughts - both personal information as well as your thoughts about other people - is perfectly acceptable on the Internet," Nancy said.
A third explanation is researchers' term "disinhibition," the way the Internet allows "space" between "speaker" and "hearer" in a conversation. Part of it is, there's no body language, no instant feedback, and kids can be anonymous or hide behind roles they play, so they say things they'd never say to someone in person. It's also a lot easier to gang up on someone when real names aren't attached to attackers.
News reports aren't focusing much on solutions to cyberbullying yet. One reason is probably that there are no quick fixes. A second is that there's often a very fine line - suddenly crossed when the participants, much less parents, least expect it - between cybersocializing and cyberbullying. Awareness of that fine line and what happens when it's crossed needs to grow, parents need to get involved in their kids' online lives, and schools need help (Nancy says school safety experts understand bullying but often not the cyber sort, and school tech experts usually don't understand the psychological issues), and a public discussion is needed to get all these perspectives working together.
There are some things parents can do and families can begin talking about:
- Values are key. When I asked Nancy what she'd say is the No. 1 solution to cyberbullying, she said, "Values. Communicating them to our kids. Communicating the fact that the values that you hold that are expected within your family, your community, are the same values they should use on the Internet." And the No. 1 value? The Golden Rule, or ethic of reciprocity (see these pages about its universality at ReligiousTolerance.org and TeachingValues.com) - how would you feel if somebody did this to you? Building on that, other important values might be modesty, respect for self and others, mercy, fairness, protecting one's privacy, standing up for others, etc. - all absent in cases of cyberbullying.
- Bully-proof first. "You can't merely cyberbully-proof your children," Nancy said, "you have to bully-proof them, and the best book I've read on bullying is 'The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander,' by Barbara Coloroso. I think it ought to be required reading for educators and for parents," Nancy continued. "I love her words. She talks about the 'brick wall family' [strict, authoritarian approach, where the child understand the family's values only in the context of adult authority]; the 'jellyfish family' [no stated standards - child is to sort it all out for himself], and the 'backbone family,' [values clearly communicated (the backbone), and the child is taught to think them through and make responsible choices based on them]."
- Understand the Internet together - it's global, public, and what's distributed on it is pretty much permanent/can't be removed. Writing something negative about someone else in a private diary made of paper is different from writing about her/him in a public forum. The latter becomes defamation, and there are laws against that. By thinking they shouldn't read their kids' online journals or blogs, Nancy said, "parents are reinforcing the impression that this activity on the Net is private." Parents and kids should talk about what's being posted on the Web. 1) Kids need to know that they (everybody!) have "valid rights to privacy and a good reputation," as Nancy put it. They need to think about this: "Am I putting anything out there [about myself or someone else] that can be used against me?" 2) Parents "need to understand [and help their kids understand] that they can be held financially liable for their kids' actions. There are laws in almost every state where parents can be held financially responsible for intentional wrongdoings committed by their children."
There's a lot more about legal repercussions and recourse for parents in Nancy's Web site, Cyberbully.org. See also Cyberbullying.ca, by Canadian educator Bill Belsey, who also created the award-winning Bullying.org; and "Stop Bullying Now!" from the US Department of Health and Human Resources and its Youth Expert Panel of 19 people (who had been either bullies or victims) ages 9-19.
Email me your experiences with cyberbullying, as a parent, relative, friend, or educator. What you've learned can be very helpful to other readers. The address, as always: feedback@netfamilynews.org.
- "Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar" in the New York Times (see also "Self-published child porn" in this newsletter).
- "Cyberbullies' torments have much wider reach" in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
- "Rise of the cyberbully demands new rules" in the Christian Science Monitor
- "Internet bullying" in an earlier Monitor article with some stats
- "When kids turn cyberbullies" in Newsday
- "Removing the Bully Factor" at ConnectforKids.org
- "The growing cyberbullying problem" last winter in this newsletter
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