I usually encourage parents NOT to confront the bully or his/her parents unless they are absolutely certain that it will not cause greater trauma to their child. Instead, I encourage parents to report such instances to the school, someone in charge of the extracurricular activity where their child interacts with the bully, or the police (when severe enough). If the cyber bullying is taking place at school or a school-related activity, then the school can intervene.
Bullies (cyber and non-cyber) are easier to deal with today than in the past because laws have been created to protect our children from various forms of harassment at school. Legislation dictates the need to have a proper learning environment free of harassment. Safety comes first and most schools that have someone or something that interferes with the safety of their children very quickly are removed from the equation. No tolerance policies for weapons, harassment, and bullying have been adopted by most schools, which is why there has been such a large increase in the number of suspensions and expulsions in our schools today.
If your child is not opening up to you about cyber bullying, you can Google your child’s name to identify if there have been any instances where he or she has been harassed. This search will also indicate if your child has a public profile on the Web, which should immediately be removed or made private to ward off bullies and/or sexual predators. Parents should be familiar with their child’s Web site. Familiarize yourself with your child’s buddy list or top eight (list of top eight friends). Parents and children have the ability to block unwanted people or interaction on the Web, which can immediately reduce the amount of cyber bullying from a known offender.
I encourage kids and their parents to save all harassing comments and messages sent by a bully to be used as evidence in case you choose to file a report with the police. Law enforcement officers state that the header information on these messages should also be saved so that they can track the problem more easily. One of my patients was bullied both in person and online for over a year. She saved over one hundred pages of threatening comments and harassing messages sent by a small group of boys and girls at her school. With the support of her parents, she eventually decided to report the problem to the police. The police were able to intervene due to the evidence that she collected. They reprimanded the students and worked with the school to put into place an anti-bullying curriculum, which decreased the amount of bullying by over 70 percent at their school.
