The Digital Consultant

I get shirtloads of junkmail. Who doesn't right? On this occasion however a pamphlet targeted at raising awareness for "cyber-bullying" caught my eye. There was the "scare stuff" then info on what to do if your kid is a victim, what things you can do to minimise risk etc. What struck me was the lack of information about what to do if it's your kid doing the bullying. What to do if you're child is a conspiritor. It got me thinking. That sort of stuff is conspicuously absent in a most of the material I've seen. We like to tell ourselves the perpetrator of such things would never be "one of ours" or that someone will "take action" rather than be a passive by stander but we're kidding ourselves. I want the "is your child an online bully?" checklist? There's got to be almost as many bullies as there are victims. Seems a bit like grabbing the bull by only one horn. 
This feeds into why I'm not a fan of the "separate cyberbullying program" distinction. The focus of most programs (there are some good ones out there) seems to be on what not to use, what information not to post, where not to visit, who not to talk to, not to, not to, not to. Now this seems to make sense initially but has a tendency to demonise the technology and the people who use it. Effective programs assist in identifying bullying behaviours because learning to recognise a behaviour is the first step in modifying it. Young people often state when questioned about bullying (especially online) that they didn't think what they were doing was overly bad and they definitely wouldn't classify it as bullying. Big problem.

Do you know how to recognise if you child is bullying online? Can your child identify what might be considered bullying behaviour? Can you?

All adults have a responsibility to get across this. And fast. Because these modes of communication aren't going away.

But what do I know?