When cyberbullying hits teens

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This problem was solved by the Bush Administraton; But lets do even better

Existing laws involving telephone harassment apply. What this means is that when some one feels they are being harassed they need only indicate that feeling and ask for the real name of the person harassing them. In the USA there is no law against harassing but once asked for the real name there is jail time if the cyberbullying continues anonymously. There are mechanisms like restraining orders that can be applied just as there is with telephone harassment. And, of course, if an identity is stolen (the bully pretends to be someone he is not) there are laws that can be applied.

An interesting notion was presented in Puget Sound Business Journal in the August 3-9 edition. I can not find the article but the notion involved children and successful adults.

Success is defined as being able to negotiate your way to getting what you want. The notion is that children are usually good negotiators because they employ tactics that let others know what they want and they are persistent. If those child like ways are maintained you end up with an adult like Bill Gates, who of course is often charged with being a bully, but is viewed as successful.

What is done with articles of this type and is counter productive to the children becoming successful adults is perpetuation of a notion that success as an adult comes from not speaking.

The suggestion that chatting freely is childish or naive behavior is a notion that fosters failure as an adult because adults who can not or will not tell others what they want are very poor negotiators. They are also poor voters.

We can do better by going the other way. Encourage children to chat and defend and then tell parents and educators when they are being harassed so that the cyberpunk can be dealt with. Adults are also cyperbullied by children. In Olympia Washington a child pretended to be the father of a rival - something like that anyway. The point is that bloging and email are no different than telephony. Our society has long had the mechanisms in place for dealing with it but nonetheless we can be do even better by fostering open communication with children about things that bother them in cyberspace and everyplace.

Posted by: mighetto   Posted on: 08/08/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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