Some Ideas To Help End Bullying by Patty Blount, author

You know that old saying about sticks and stones? That's about the biggest bunch of BS ever uttered. The truth is, words have meaning. They have the power to hurt and hurt deeply. 

Mine won't be a popular opinion but I have to say it -- parents, WE must all do more to keep kids safe online, a lot more than we're doing. We're the ones buying kids computers and video games and tablets and smart phones, but what training, what supervision are we giving kids after we hand them those 'toys'? 

I've been through bullying with my oldest son -- both as victim and perpetrator -- and even wrote a book on bullying called SEND. When you're willing to swear on your life your child would never be cruel, trust me -- you're wrong. 

Kids frequently mess up. That's why they're kids and not just short adults. We have to teach them empathy, not entitlement and understand this is an ongoing discussion that doesn't happen just once. We have to treat technology the way we treat our cars. We don't just simply hand them the keys one day. Instead, we make sure they're prepared. We instruct, we register them for classes, and only when they've convinced us they can be trusted do we hand over those keys. 

That's the same approach we need to adopt with technology. Do you know who your child's online friends are? Do you know what networks they have accounts on? Do you know their passwords? Do you know what they're posting? 

Don't assume they're mature enough to know what's appropriate and what's not. Even adults aren't getting that message (just ask Anthony Weiner).  I recently asked my twenty-one-year-old to delete a post that essentially told everyone on Facebook that his mother was home alone for a weekend. "But they're my friends." He argued. "Yes," I agreed but then reminded him, "what about their friends and their friends' friends?" 

When I was researching my book, I learned that a lot of kids get sucked into things they know are wrong but do anyway -- sort of a peer pressure thing. One of the worst examples of this? The way kids who KNOW bullying is taking place but do nothing to help the victim. Even worse? They join in. The technology we buy them as toys makes that way too easy to do -- one reason for this is because it's practically anonymous. It's a concept I call 'digital bravado' -- that feeling of untouchability, invincibility that we can say whatever we want because we're safe behind a keyboard. What's missing -- and this I believe is our fault as parents -- is an explanation of the damage that occurs when we make unkind remarks about others. I've always thought it was ironic that we call networks like Twitter and Facebook 'social media' but they encourage behavior that's anything but. 

Here's another tough opinion to hear -- if your child is the victim, you should CUT OFF his or her online access immediately. When my son was the victim of bullies, he didn't have Facebook and Twitter and Ask.fm accounts. Today, the victims of bullies have no reprieve from their tormentors because technology lets those big mouths right into your home, 24x7. Today, bullying has become this insidious brainwashing that infiltrates all aspects of a child's life, not just the school or the playground. I remain convinced that if he'd had access to all those networks back then, I'd have buried him. 

Bullying in various forms has existed for probably as long as civilization itself, but we have to face this uncomfortable truth -- the devices and gadgets we pay for are the tools kids are using to hurt each other in ways we couldn't even dream about just a generation earlier. 

If you need information on bullying and stopping the epidemic, please visit websites like The Bully Project, and the Anti-Bully Project today. October is National Bullying Awareness Month. The only way we'll ever stop this is when parents finally admit it could be their kid.