What
Is Cyberbullying?
How
Bad Is The Problem For Kids & Teens?
Today's kids now have to deal with more
than one kind
of bully...
A recent survey of 2,000 middle-school students
from a single school district in the U.S. tells us that over
17% of them have been the target of a cyberbully.
But what is cyberbullying
and how exactly are kids at risk?
Bullying
has always been a problem. But now kids
can be tormented by their bully 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
through their computers and their cell phones.
The attacks can occur anywhere, anytime, over and over again.
As long as the victim keeps using these devices, the online
harassment continues.
Emails
and text messaging are the most commonly used online bullying
tools. Nasty messages can include
teasing remarks, jokes and offensive pictures.
The victims can be riduculed and embarssed through online
posts and chat room discussions involving their peers. Videos
can be posted about them online, always available for anyone
to see and share. They repeatedly endure harassing phone calls
and anonymous threats. It
really becomes a never-ending nightmare for the young kids.
These
victims will often feel totally alone, trapped and desperate
for a solution. Most of them simply don't know what to do
when it happens to them. For some, the effects can be especially
brutal and the results can be disastrous. Extreme
cases of cyberbullying have led to teen suicide and
terrible, long-lasting emotional damage.
Avoiding
this issue will eventually lead to problems
with a child's self-esteem, their self-confidence, and their
emotional stability. Kids can potentially suffer from nervousness,
anxiety and dark states of depression. They can fall into
social isolation, and they'll be far more likely to engage
in criminal behavior as they get older. Left alone, kids may
even become bullies themselves, victimizing other children
and making things even worse.
Parents who don't understand how to help their troubled kids
are also being victimized by these cyberbullies.
The risks are just too great too ignore it all.
This is
not the kind of problem that usually just takes care of itself.
This needs your focus and your compassion, and it
needs to be handled well in order to minimize
the effects on kids as well as yourself. As a parent,
you have to know what to do when your child comes to you asking
for assistance because an online bully is bothering them.
How
would you handle it?
Thankfully,
you
don't have to figure it all out on your own.
An excellent new resource is now available that's easy to
use and can eliminate this very serious problem. All you need
to do right now is click
here
Joe Medeiros
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