A mostly well-written article in Forbes covers the topic of cyberbullying. I'm sure it's a big departure from the story of the day for their typical reader: the stock market meltdown.
I was struck by an odd comment in the opening paragraph that gives the impression cyberbullying is a low-incidence issue. Then later on they use the standard stats that show INCREDIBLY common this problem is. Huh?
At least they give extremely good advice about how to prevent the problem (develop policies in the schools, talk to your kids about it, discuss and use preventation strategies when the first nasty message shows up) as well as how to handle it. I think the last bit about what we do when cyberbullying hits home is still the hardest. We have a few strategies but none are well proven over time.
Let's say your child is being cyberbullied and you do all the right things: keep a copy, don't respond to the bully, pretend you never got the messages, report to the school/website/ISP, etc. The harmful aspect is that even if you feel strong and empowered by the advice you get here or in articles like Forbes, your child is still feeling terrible pain. Their circle of friends is also impacted, especially when the harmful statements or images are in public web locations like on MySpace. How are we helping our children to deal with the emotional scars of this? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or even examples of how cyberbullying has impacted your school or child.