Activities to Use When Teaching Children About Cyberbullying

default_cyberbullying

As we work with youth-serving organizations across the nation, we often hear about how the resources we post on our web site are used. I was in New Hampshire last week, and heard that schools there makes laminated copies of our activities for kids (such as our crossword puzzle, word find, and word scramble), and then distributes them to students in classes at various elementary- and middle-school grade levels. Students then use dry-erase markers to fill them out, and then each class competes with other classes to earn the highest classroom-wide “successful completion” rate. The winning class then receives a pizza party! We thought this was a very creative (and environmentally-friendly) way to engage the minds of tech-involved tweens and teens, and get them excited about learning to do the right thing in cyberspace. If you’d like to share with us how you have recently used some of the materials and downloadables we provide, we’d love to hear from you!

1 Comment

  1. Just turning off the computer is not the option to respond to cyberbulling. People do not have to go out of their way because others are bothering. This is why there are some laws that protecting cyberbulliyng victims and punish those that are supposed to act, help, intervene. For example, Schools are obligated to intervene if a student reports being cyberbullied. School stuff failing to respond can be held legally responsible. Schools have also been advised of how to deal with these situations. The type of response should be proportionate to the serious of the offense. For example a student teasing another student should meet with counselor and parents are called. Another student making death threats should face civil punishment instead of meeting with counselor (see graph 7.1 on page 164; very instructive). Schools also are advised to come with different programs and perform certain behaviors to respond to cyberbulling. Parents are also advised of how to react to this problem. Like it has been mentioned before not only schools have an important role on this matter. When a child faces cyberbulling, parents need to remain calm making sure the child is safe. They also need to contact the school to further actions, collect evidence and contact police if the situation is serious. The parents of the cyberbully should talk to the child, punish, set limits, close computer surveillance, software tracking. When we talk about bystanders, we come to difficulties because people do not want to get involved. However, they need to understand that they can make a big difference. Teenagers being cyberbullied need to stay calm, ignore, block other people bothering you, let an adult know, do not respond and keep any type of evidence. There are also some definitions that we need to be familiar with. Defamation is the false communication that injures other's reputation. Invasion of privacy is the unwarranted appropriation of one's personality, publicizing one's private affairs. Intentional Infliction of emotional distress is causing other person sever emotional distress. Like it was concluded in the previous chapter, cyberbulling responds is a mix of everyone's actions. School, society, law enforcement and parents each have an important role to prevent and solve this issue.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *