I participated in an Influencer Activation Program about Cyberbullying on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for BGCA. I received a promotional item to facilitate my review. Just the word Cyberbullying makes my skin crawl. When I was growing up, not to date myself totally, a bully had to stand in front of someone and be a bully. They could not be a coward who does mean things behind a 12 inch screen. When I was asked to talk about Cyber Safe Futures Campaign, conducted with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), in partnership with Sprint, I was thrilled to get on board and not only contribute my thoughts but learn something.
Did you know June is Internet Saftely Awareness Month? Kids are getting out of school and probably have more time on their devices, for better or for worse so now is the time to really have those conversations with your children about Being Cyber Safe.
If you think you kids wont listen to you, BGCA has turned the tables and put real life expert teens, the CyberTribe, to answer your cyber safety questions throughout the month of June. When you log in they immediately ask you a few questions about your kids technology use and what type of conversations, if any you have had with them. It really made me stop and think. With three kids ages 8,10, and 12 all with iTouches, they can fall be victims or initiatiors of Cyberbullyng too. ( I hope not the later)
We had an incident this school year about my daughter not wanting someone to post a silly video of her. The kid did not understand that she did not want it on and to respect her feelings. I let the conversation go on for a while and then said I know you think this is a funny video, but you are not in it and if it hurts someones feelings this is kind of like cyberbullying when you know the person does not want the video online. Side note: The other kid found the video on their siblings technology so my daughter had not posted it publicly. What would you do?
Are you a cybersafe parent? Well you can only be by asking questions, not only to your friends about also to teens who are in the midst of the cyber generation.
How you can learn more about being a Cybersafe Parent? BGCA asks parents to submit questions about cyber security to get real answers from the Boys & Girls Club teen CyberTribe. I asked a question about how to monitor all the instant chat apps and keep my daughter from joining more.
As part of the Cyber Safe Futures campaign, the Q&A will be hosted on the CyberSafeFutures.org website where parents can go to learn more about cyberbullying, online privacy, social networking, and mobile smarts through an abundance of resources. Plus you can win prizes just for submitting your questions. BGCA is also entering everyone who submits a question to the CyberTribe into a raffle to win one of three grand prizes: an iPad and $500 to the Club of your choice. This is a win win and the website is easy to navigate and has some great information.
I am so sorry you are dealing with it and that you are not getting the necessary responses from your school
That is great. We have been dealing with Cyberbullying and believe me it is no fun. And what is really sad, is there are not any real laws or legislation that is defined in a way where cops know what to do. We were told that we had to go through our school SRO (school resource officer) since the girls were in middle school. It’s crazy.
Great advice, thank you Something all parents need to be aware of.