Cyber Bullying - How Can we Keep Our Children From Becoming Victims?

Cyber bullying can be extremely dangerous and has now lead to many children to grow to be so affected that they ultimately committed suicide. They may be quite often referred to as bullycide victims. Is your child a victim of internet cyber bullying?

Remember when we were kids and how the schoolyard or neighborhood bully would make life miserable for some poor kid who he targeted for his daily amusement? Things sure have changed with the development of the internet. The Internet bully has arrived and is rapidly becoming a major problem and risk for our kids.

This type of harassment can take many forms. It is usually perpetrated by a child of similar age to your own. It could be one of their peers that they know from school or a neighbor. However it can also be an adult who is looking to do harm to your child.

There are many forums and chat rooms our kids love to frequent on the internet. Places like Facebook and MySpace are very popular with our teenagers. It turns out that according to surveys these types of sites are the main sources of cyber bullying.

Your teenager could be talking in a forum with other friends and all of a sudden the individual starts harassing your teenager and making comments to embarrass and humiliate them in front of their friends and peers. They may make false allegations and claims to discredit your kid.

Many times the cyber bully may log into a site using a false identity, the identity of your child, and make statements or actions that others think your teenager is responsible for.

This person can also post images of your child they may have gained access to through friends or previous physical encounters with your child. Kids will be kids and sometimes pictures are taken without concern that they may be seen out of context.

Of course with graphic programs like Photoshop the cyber bully could easily fake a picture using the head of your child and the body of another individual to compose a picture image that could be extremely embarrassing and harmful. It is very easy to do with these powerful image editing programs.

It has been shown through surveying youth that a third of our children fall victim of cyber bullying. Many times parents are totally unaware because the surveys also show that 41% never tell anyone like parents or friends when they go off the internet. They are more likely to confide with another friend on the internet.

How do we know if they are victims of this type of abuse? If your kid is being constantly attacked by a bully while online they could easily become one of the many victims that become so depressed that they may consider or actually commit suicide. If they do not tell us how can we help them?

There are software programs that will allow us to monitor what is going on when our children are online. With the use of these programs you can, without your child ever knowing, make sure they are not falling victim to internet cyber bullying or any of the other various dangers present on the net.