How to Protect Children from Internet Bullies

What is internet bullies?

Internet Bullies, or Cyber-bullying, has been defined as "when the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person", or as "when an electronic device is used to attack or defame the character of a real person. Often embarrassing or false information about the victim is posted in an online forum where the victim and those who know the victim can see it publicly."

Examples of internet bullies behaviour are:

• threats and intimidation;
• harassment or “cyber-stalking” (e.g. repeatedly sending unwanted texts or instant messages);
• vilification / defamation (e.g. posting false statements as fact aimed at humiliation);
• exclusion or peer rejection;
• unauthorized publication of private data (e.g. disclosing victims' real name, image, address at websites);
• impersonation and manipulation.

Internet bullies can range from embarrassing or cruel online posts or digital pictures, to online threats, harassment, and negative comments, to stalking through emails, Web pages, text, and IM (instant messaging). While any age group is vulnerable, teenagers and young adults are common victims, and Internet bullies is a growing problem in schools.

Some surveys and statistics on internet bullies

The National Crime Prevention Council reports internet bully is a problem that affects almost half of all American teens.

In 2007, Debbie Heimowitz, a Stanford University master's student, created Adina's Deck, a film based on Stanford accredited research. She worked in focus groups for ten weeks in three different schools to learn about the problem of internet bully in Northern California. The findings determined that over 60% of students had been internet-bullied and were victims of internet bully. The film is now being used in classrooms nationwide as it was designed around learning goals pertaining to problems students had understanding the topic. The middle school of Megan Meier is reportedly using the film as a solution to the crisis in their town.

In September 2006, ABC News reported on a survey prepared by I-Safe.Org. This 2004 survey of 1,500 students between grades 4-8 reported:

• 42% of kids have been bullied while online. One in four have had it happen more than once.
• 35% of kids have been threatened online. Nearly one in five had had it happen more than once.
• 21% of kids have received mean or threatening e-mails or other messages.
• 58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online. More than four out of ten say it has happened more than once.
• 58% have not told their parents or an adult about something mean or hurtful that happened to them online.

A 2006 survey by Harris Interactive reported:

• 43% of U.S. teens having experienced some form of cyber-bullying in the past year.

Similarly, a Canadian study found:

• 23% of middle-schoolers surveyed had been bullied by e-mail
• 35% in chat rooms
• 41% by text messages on their cell phones
• Fully 41% did not know the identity of the perpetrators.

Internet Bullies Tips for Parents & Kids

Nothing is worse than a child being harassed by a bully. No one should have to live with this abuse but it happens far too often. Bullies can make a child's life miserable and the consequences of the abuse can have long term implications. Now instead of being harassed on the bus or at the playground, kids can be bullied online. These types of abusers now have a new name, they are called cyber bullies or griefers.

Internet Bullies Tips for Parents

1. Talking To Your Child About Online Harassment and Bullying

First and foremost, you need to know about the harassment. Often kids don't tell their parents about harassment because they are embarrassed and want to handle it themselves. They also worry that parent involvement will only make matters worse. They may have even been threatened not to tell. If you suspect that you child is being harassed online and your child hasn't told you, you need to talk to your child. Your child needs to understand why they are being bullied.

2. Determine the Type of Abuse, Harassment or Defamation

If the harassment includes threats of violence against your child, call the local police department. If the harassment is defaming in nature, you must save and document the harassment. Your child can copy and paste defaming messages that were sent to them over instant messengers, save emails, and save blog posts that defame them. Be sure to log the dates and times. You can even install monitoring software that will assist in the documentation of the abuse. If the abuse is limited, your child may be able to walk away from the harassment by changing email address, instant messenger user name or forum name.

Internet Bullies Tips for Kids

• Ignore abuse and leave the situation immediately..
• Do not use a user name that invites abuse.
• Do not give out personal information online such as email address, IM (Instant Messenger) user names, phone numbers or home address.

Surveilstar - Keep Your Children Away from Internet Bullies

SurveilStar is an extremely easy software to setup and start using. In addition to basic monitoring of online and offline activities. It allows you to block websites your children visit based on the information you provide. It can block websites based on keywords or on actual websites you wish to block. Another feature of Surveilstar is that the activity you see is near REAL TIME! You will see what your children are doing, when they are doing it. This is even true if you are sitting at the office and they are at home. You can immediately know if they are doing something that they are not supposed to be doing.

If you are really concerned about your children's online safety , you really should install this Parental Control software on you kids' computer to keep them away from the online bullies. Surveilstar will help you track emails, IM’s, chats, social networking, websites visited, images viewed, etc.

To start an all-out strategic battle to protect kids from online dangers, while still letting them safely enjoy the games and resources that are available on the Internet, SurveilStar is the perfect solution that can be used for filtering web site content and monitoring the web sites my kids are viewing on the Internet:

This wonderful parental control software allows you to keep your kids safe online by:

• Taking Screenshots in Real Time
• Blocking Unwanted Websites
• Recording Instant Messaging Sessions
• Recording Emails and Attachments
• Recording Websites Visited

It is impossible that you can keep an eye upon your kids online activity all the time. But with the Surveilstar parental control software, it's available to have the ability to track their Internet activity when you're not around, as well as other types of computer usage such as IM chats and email.

SurveilStar Parental Control will take screenshots of your system every few seconds, and then lets you view it in a video-like display whenever you want to check up on your kid's computer activities. Besides, it will logs all computer activities including startup/shutdown, logon/logoff, hardware changes, software changes, application usages, website, document, printing, shared file logs, email send/receive, instant messages, application statistics, web statistics, traffic statistics, and more!