Immediate Help for Cyber Bullying
What to do when online bullying is a problem
If you need help with cyber bullying, there are immediate steps that kids and teens can take to protect themselves and that parents can take to solve the problem at its root without exposing their children to further bullying or harassment.
First, a primer on how to prevent and avoid the actions and effects of cyber bullying can be found at CyberBullyHelp.com, but if you’re in a situation that requires instant action, try these tips. This isn’t legal advice; this is just common sense information that might help:
- Speak up! Victims of online aggression shouldn’t be shy.
- Block senders of online harassment
- Report bullies to social network sites and try to remove their profiles
- Save the messages or comments for later, but delete them from your profile
- If school computers are used, parents can insist teachers stop that type of use
- Call the police if you are threatened with physical harm
Primarily, though, voicing that bullying is not OK is going to be its main deterrent. Do not give into bullying or think that it has to control or ruin your life. Talk to anyone who can help and keep talking until the harassing behavior stops.
Often, there are other solutions, but if it comes down to it, civil justice might provide an avenue to stop cyber bullying, too.
Longer-term solutions to cyber bullying
What can be done to provide our schools and our communities with incentives to address the bullying problem aggressively? Here are a few ideas:
(1) Victim advocates need to be more active in education efforts. Even today, a corollary of bullying is that it is a "rite of passage." My hometown newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution -- which often supports consumers as well as victim's rights -- once ran an editorial that dismissed the efforts of Georgia lawmakers to strengthen Georgia's bullying statute in the General Assembly, and instead advocated for more gun control. This is a prime example of "not getting it." The Atlanta paper compares apples and oranges when it implies that bullying is the type of school violence that can be solved by taking guns out of our youths' hands.
(2) We should provide an incentive for our schools to create a new set of expectations -- that bullying is not a rite of passage, but instead it is not to be tolerated, and our schools will be safe from these harmful acts. One way is to strengthen the existing bullying law in Georgia, which currently provides no responsibility on the adults in this equation. There should be a reasonable supervision standard inserted. If the concern over lawsuits for failing to stop bullying is a roadblock to setting such a standard, then put a standard in there that precludes liability when certain reasonable supervision standards are met. This is done in other areas, such as Georgia's mandated reporting statute. The standard could ensure protections for the educators, so long as they followed a reasonable protocol designed to ensure a bully-free school zone.
(3) Expand the definition of bullying in Georgia. Besides physical harm, what about harassment? Intimidation? Coercive activities? Isn't a good definition of bullying really defined as "persistent and pervasive harassment targeting a specific individual," regardless of physical harm? I like that one, which comes from one of my legal journals. A lot of bullies can dodge the "bullying" label as it stands.
It is painful to see the exasperation and despair in parents of bullying victims, and heartbreaking to see a kid who has suffered extreme forms of bullying. When they come to me, I try to give them a fighting chance, as creatively as my brain can think. But frankly, far more of these cases are turned away because of the uneven playing field. Only a change in our laws, our court decisions, our school policies, and in our perception of bullying can level the field.
