Big Cyber Bullies: How parents can cause unsafe online environments

Where do they learn cyberbullying? From you!

You know the story: The kids are getting out of hand with bullying each other. Technology has turned it into a 24/7 event, with little respite for the bullied. Meanwhile, concerned parents are asking: "How do we get them to stop?" I've got a better question: How do we get ourselves to stop?

Bullying is a learned behavior for most children. Cyberbullying is just an extension of this behavior, played out on the Internet. When kids see their parents treat others with contempt and disrespect online, they will mimic that behavior.

How does this happen? In the simplest of ways - from kids looking at the variety of ways that the adults around them behave online and assuming this is the way they should act. From kids picking up their parents' phones to play games and scrolling through a history of disrespectful texts. From moms and dads logging on to check their favorite websites, leaving a rant or slur in the comments and their kids subsequently reading those rants when the browser is left open.

Related: 10 Bullying Facts: Best ways to stop and prevent school bullying

Here's a truth no one wants to acknowledge: With every mean, gossipy text that parents send, with every derogatory comment parents write, we lower the standards for the digital community. People are less inhibited online, frequently writing with a level of self-righteousness and sarcasm that they wouldn't express to another person's face. They hit the "send" button and fire off words as weapons.

But these actions really do have ramifications on our ever-watchful, ever-listening kids. And it is not just on sports websites or in private conversations that adults cyberbully each other - I have seen many well-intentioned parents launch personal attacks at each other over disagreements on parenting websites like this one. Some of the hot topics that can lead to personal attacks? Circumcision, breastfeeding, gender-nonconforming children, childhood beauty pageants, homeschooling, just to name a few.

I spoke with Cheryl Kilodavis, author of the children's picture book My Princess Boy, about the
phenomenon of adult cyberbullies. Cheryl has a Facebook page called My Princess Boy, intended as a place for discussion about children like her son Dyson, a little boy who likes to wear sparkly dresses and tiaras.

"Our rule on the Facebook page is this: If there are personal attacks on us or other commenters, then those comments will be removed. Constructive dialogue is fine. We can disagree. We can even disagree passionately and vehemently, but when it comes to personal attacks, it is no longer constructive."

Cheryl and I talked about how discouraging it is when someone with an excellent argument sabotages his or her own conversation by getting too angry and throwing in slurs or personal attacks. "And, sometimes," she lamented, "a supportive bystander would verbally attack a bully right back, and we would have to remove that very person who sympathized with us. We anticipated that people would have disagreements, but we did not anticipate the intensity of the personal attacks. Some people would even create fake names to come back on to the page after we banned them, and they began cyberstalking other people. The Facebook legal team has had to help us a lot."

Related: School Bullying Victims: The causes and signs of bullying among kids

Some websites, such as mamapedia.com, have a moderator who will remove abusive comments and block the authors. But for many websites, the comments section is unmoderated, and the insults fly. The examples of disrepectful dialogue are as numerous as they are outrageous, regardless of how you feel about the issue at hand.

In response to Sarah Hoffman's article on www.salon.com about raising a feminine boy:
"I don't care if your son grows up to be gay, bi or normal with a fetish for cross dressing. What I care about is you and your f---ing ego. Your son may be little but he has his own rights. And as far as I'm concerned you have violated his right to privacy. I don't give a sh-- if you are his mother - you have no right to broadcast his personality quirks all over the internet."
In response to other people commenting on Rufus Griscom's article on www.babble.com about circumcision:
"It takes one hell of a sick or stupid individual to inflict that on a newborn child! What kind of repulsive parent would even WANT the right to deprive their children of SEXUAL BODY PARTS?"
In response to a YouTube video about childhood beauty pageants:
"This is not a lovely family day out where the little girl gets pampered and loved. It's clearly mothers (usually) living some kind of odd sick fantasy of beauty through their daughters; you will notice that almost all of the mums are f-- ugly, it's NOTHING!! to do with the children, they are being USED and thus ABUSED!!!"

In response to an Aaron Traister's article on www.salon.com about taking his daughter to eat at Hooter's:
"The real story here is not that you took your daughter to a Hooters, it's the fact that you went to a Hooters at all. You should just get a tattoo on your forehead: LOSER. Just like that, in caps. In all seriousness, the only guys that hang out at a Hooters are the most brain-dead, beer-gut, sports-fan morons. A "guy's guy" just like ultra-douche Aaron Traister."

The above comments are just a tiny sample of the types of things adults are writing to each other. How would you feel if you saw someone writing those types of comments on your child's Facebook page? Because it happens, 24 hours a day, and there is no point telling the kids not to do it if the grown-ups are doing it.

Related: Internet Safety for Kids: How to prevent cyber bullying and facebook predators

I called Anne Collier, editor of www.netfamilynews.org and co-director of www.connectsafely.org, to talk about cyberbullying. "Research has shown that people who are more aggressive in their online behavior are at higher risk of being victimized. Likewise, civil behavior reduces risk. We need adults to model good digital citizenship for kids," she explained to me.

"Digital citizenship happens when people see themselves as community stakeholders, even if that community is online. They care more about the well-being of the community itself and the individual and collective behaviors that affect it. So what psychologists call "social norming" happens - community members model good behaviors for each other, which is usually much more persuasive than rules."

According to the idea of digital citizenship, we can all influence each other to be more respectful, and this will trickle down to our children. One of the problems with the digital community is that things happen so quickly, and people often respond to each other before taking time to cool off.

As Cheryl Kilodavis observed to me, "Some people are moving so fast in their status updates and on twitter that they don't stop to think of the impact of their words. We see that with celebrities who make an anti-gay slur and fifteen tweets later, they get called out on that earlier tweet. They have already moved on. But people get hurt that way."

The takeaway? If we don't want our kids hurting each other, then we need to give them an example to live by.

by Carrie Goldman

Has your kid been the victim of cyberbullying? Visit Babble for tips on preventing bullying in and out of the classroom.

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