Technological Bullies: A Growing Problem

I left an interview Thursday determined to raise my children in a basement.

Admittedly, it sounds odd, and it’s certainly in jest, but it’s all about control.   

Making headlines this week was the arrest of two Torrington High School football players charged with sexual assault on a thirteen year old girl.  As if that’s not disturbing enough, the local paper, The Register Citizen, reports the child is being cyber-bullied for coming forward.

Which leads me to today’s interview with a young woman named Kelly Dyson.  The nineteen year old senior was the victim of vicious bullying attacks at school, on the phone, and on-line.  She says she endured non-stop harassment for more than two years.

“I would question myself, ‘What’s wrong with me?  What did I do?  What’s wrong?’  Ultimately, it wasn’t anything that I did; it was these girls just sort of attacking and having it out for me.”

According to the website bullyingstatistics.org, more than two million children are bullied each year, and cyber-bullying is becoming a more pervasive problem.  In addition, seventy-one percent of students say bullying is an on-going issue.

“It was coming both through text messages, ‘Facebooking,’ food getting thrown at me during lunch.  Just having that done to you, is damaging, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to turn, you’re scared to tell your parents because you don’t know if the situation would get even worse,” Dyson said.

One way to take control of the problem, says Steven Hernandez with the Connecticut Commission on Children, is for parents to keep tabs on what’s going on in cyberspace with their child.  If there are occurrences online, most likely, there are problems at school.  He says children might be tentative to approach a parent, but involvement is necessary to potentially avoid severe psychological trauma.

“The person in the room, who should control the behavior and control the message, is the adult, whether that’s at school or at home.”  It’s incumbent on the adult as to what’s being accessed by the child.”

Kelly’s bullying incidents became so severe it led to a near fatal car accident.  She doesn’t hide, rather, she took control of the situation, and now talks to peers and parents on how to combat the problem.

“People going through this, who are victims, need to know that suffering in silence, is never the thing to do.  I did that, it ended up with me almost dying…But I’ve become stronger with this.  I have a voice, and I can use it.  Ultimately, that is the most important thing.  Don’t let yourself sit there by yourself.”

…Which goes for parents as well. As much as I’d like to keep my children in the basement, protect them in a cocoon, life doesn’t work that way.  Knowledge is power, and the better prepared my kids are to meet the challenges of growing up, the better parent I’ll be.    

(Note:  For more information on how to combat bullying, you can go to the Connecticut Commission on Children’s webpage at http://www.cga.ct.gov/coc/bullying.htm)