Ideas+for+dealing+with+cyber+bullying


 * IDEAS FOR DEALING WITH CYBER BULLYING **

Most students don’t believe that there is a permanent solution to cyber bullying. There are very low rates of reporting cyber bullying to parents or teachers as most students are reluctant to tell anyone about what has been happening.

However, in a study of British Columbia students aged 11-15, students ranked 10 ideas in order of what idea they thought would help the most.

The ideas were:

1. Develop programs to teach students about cyber-bullying and its effects 2. Set up an anonymous phone-in line where students can report cyber-bullying 3. Make it known that the school does not tolerate cyber-bullying 4. Punish students who participate in cyber bullying 5. Have zero tolerance policy towards cyber bullying 6. Involve the police in cases of cyber bullying 7. Get parents, students and school staff together to talk about solutions 8. Develop a positive school culture where students learn to be kind to each other 9. Offer lots of extra-curricular activities so students won’t have time to cyber bully 10. Work on creating positive self-esteem in students

The top three choices were: anonymous phone line, developing programs to teach about cyber bullying and punishing students who cyber bully. Fortunately, the Kids Help Phone partially addresses one of these solutions. The Kids Help Phone is an anonymous, free phone service that offers support to people aged 5-20 and offers resources to those over 21 about where they can get help. Teachers have the ability to assist in other areas of this list; not tolerating bullying within the classroom, speaking with the students about cyber bullying and its effects and creating a safe classroom are all very simple actions that can impact individual students greatly.