How to Protect Your Child From Cyber-Bullying

Middletown Patch (Middletown, CT) April 13, 2011 "'What is cyber-bullying and what can I do to protect my child from it?' Cyber-bullying is basically harassing or tormenting another person through an online medium like Facebook or texting. There are several defined types of cyber-bullying: cyber-stalking, exclusion, outing, masquerading, etc. But let’s not get hung up on definitions. Bullying is simply when one person does something, physically or emotionally, to intentionally cause harm to another person. So what’s a parent to do? First of all... Be a parent – in more than just title. Be involved on a daily basis in your child’s life. Teach, monitor, assess and re-teach as necessary. Be the primary influence in your child’s life. This will be a common theme you’ll hear in this column. I’m a firm believer that parents need to take the majority of the responsibility for how their children turn out. Are they responsible, contributing members of society or are they prejudiced, bratty, self-centered and abusive members of society? How they turn out is somewhere around 80 percent due to how they were parented." Read More