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It’s important to introduce young people to issues related to cyberbullying and online safety at an early age.  One way to do this is to have them participate in a fun activity that includes key concepts or practical advice.  For example, we have several activities on our site, including a word find and a crossword puzzle, that you can use.  Another idea is to have students write a cyberbullying limerick.  Having youth write a poem about a topic can be a great way to get them to think about that topic in a different way.  Often times I find that my students remember information that they included in their limericks better because they set it to rhyme.  So here is my shot at a cyberbullying limerick.  Use this activity in your classrooms or with your children to begin a conversation about online safety and responsibility.  Send us some examples and we’ll post them on our web site!

Cyberbullying makes life miserable
For the one who is bullied, daily activities can be unbearable
So do your part to stop this fad
By telling a teacher, or mom or dad
When you see bullying happen away from the lunchroom table

My colleagues and I have been discussing the phenomenon of sexting in great detail recently, in light of the actions of two Texas school districts.  Before the beginning of this new school year, the Houston Independent school district (one of the largest in the nation) and the Dallas-Fort Worth school district banned sending sexually-explicit photos or messages over cell phones.  Some argue that this action is paternalistic, outdated, tyrannical, and even possibly unconstitutional.  Others applaud the decision, which reflects that administrators are finally treating this matter seriously.

Personally, I’m glad that the district is focusing in on the problem, but I’m not sure if this policy will actually be useful as students tend not to be deterred by heavy-handed rule-making.  I also don’t want its presence to take the place of purposed educational efforts to teach students about the responsible use of technology.  This sometimes happens when laws or policies are implemented as a way of quickly “dealing” with an issue without understanding its fundamental causes.

When giving presentations, I talk a lot about the need to change prevailing social norms regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable in the minds of youth.  I feel that our prevention and response efforts are going to be less than ideal and fruitful if we cannot effectively counter what society and the media are hammering into the minds of adolescents.  If the dominant message our kids are hearing is that sex and sexuality lead to popularity and celebrity status with very little (if any) public or personal fallout, youth will continue to push the proverbial envelope and the line between right and wrong in this area will be increasingly obscured.  Maybe that’s fine – maybe that’s part of our inevitable march forward into modernity.  But maybe it portends more problems than we’re going to be able to handle.

A colleague sent me this article detailing how videos of bullying and other forms of violence posted online – student on student, or student on teacher – can actually be used as a “teachable tool” and to “wake everyone up.”  Parents can sit down with youth and watch them together, and convey lessons about appropriate and inappropriate ways to deal with conflict.

I actually don’t agree with this.  A recent discussion among other colleagues has focused on whether video content that ostensibly shocks the conscience can be used to teach adolescents about wrong and right behaviors.  Research and anecdotal accounts have shown, though, that images and video of drunk driving crashes are not viewed in a serious, grave light – but are rather casually dismissed as commonplace or irrelevant since youth tend to be desensitized to violence due to television, movies, and the Internet.

I think that since youth see physical fights often (as compared to adults) – either on school campuses or in the neighborhood – that seeing them captured in video and posted online will not really strike a proverbial chord in their minds.  Kids look up these kinds of videos on YouTube for entertainment.  It won’t surprise them.  It won’t deter them.  It won’t all of the sudden convince them that punches and kicks are completely unacceptable ways to resolve conflict.

I was in Colorado Springs earlier this week meeting with the Futures Working Group, which is a consortium of folks interested in exploring the future of law enforcement.  The group is an eclectic mix of law enforcement administrators, military intelligence officers, federal agents, and academics established through a memorandum of understanding between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Police Futurists International.

I will be beginning a visiting scholar position in the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI starting in October and briefed the group on my research agenda and goals for my year in the FBI.  What I want to do is better understand the role and responsibilities of law enforcement in cyberbullying incidents.  I am planning to survey law enforcement officers (especially those affiliated with schools, e.g., SROs and Liaison Officers) to learn about “best practices” in dealing with online harassment.  Based on my conversations with officers over the past couple of years, I believe there is much confusion over what they can and should be doing to prevent and respond to cyberbullying.  Clearly, online harassment represents a major issue with respect to the future of school violence and one in which law enforcement officers want guidance.

The ideas were well received by the group and I look forward to working with them over the next year to explore these issues.  I’ll be sure to post updates here about the progress of the project.

I’ve recently discussed the susceptibility of youth with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) to be cyberbullied, outlining a number of reasons that contribute to such victimization.  When it comes to suggestions as to how we can help these kids, a few things stand out in my mind.

First, it is really important to try to understand exactly what is wrong – why the Aspie is being bullied, and how it makes him or her feel.  We also need to realize that what may seem normal to us – in terms of social interaction – is not normal to AS kids.  We have to venture into their definition of “normalcy” to fully empathize with how they are struggling.  The traditional ways that we help non-AS youth may not bear much fruit when working with AS youth, just like it is useless to implement multicolored lights on an instrument panel when the operator is color-blind.  Aspies receive social signals but cannot decode their meaning with any beneficial level of reliability.  They have what could be considered subjective blindness, and it is not a fault of theirs – it is simply how they are.

Personally speaking, I have found that Aspies tend not to ask for help, not because they prefer isolation or independence, but because it does not naturally occur to them that another person will have a different perspective, different experience/knowledge, and thus might find a different or better solution.  Encourage them to tell you how they are feeling, even though they may not respond.  If they can’t answer directly, perhaps they will share their thoughts on how the same instance of cyberbullying might make another person feel.  That might clue you in to the emotions they are wrestling with.

When you are trying to share advice or suggestions of prevention and response, repeat your message often for reinforcement and heavily use logical explanations.  It may be wise to create and use simple flowcharts to depict human behavior.  These can show actions, the way in which the actions affect others, and the way in which others’ responses then affect the subject, to aid their decision-making processes.  For example, “if I do X, it will cause effect Y on other people, which will cause them to respond to me with Z”.

Finally, when working with Aspie cyberbullying victims, it may be useful to jointly analyze stories, characters, plots and motivation in fiction, to point out tropes and story cues, and to figure out why characters act as they do.  Also, try using comic books or comic strips – which often convey some of the story through characters’ emotion-laden expressions, but in simplified “cartooned” art that is easier to comprehend.  Comic strips with humor that relate to real life situations are especially good; they teach typical motivations, reading faces, understanding humor, decision-making, and coping/response mechanisms all at once.

Let us know of your successes and failures.  We are especially interested in this population of vulnerable youth, and want to all we can to help.