Please Answer Quick Poll About Bullying

Bullying is a terrible thing and can leave long lasting emotional scars.

Please take a moment to answer these questions. Thank you.

Related links:

• Pew Report on Cyberbullying
• Cnet article summarizing the Pew report
• Tips to Avoid Being Bullied
• Cyber Bullying Statistics
• Children bullying each other online
• Podcast Episode 5 “Fitting In”

New Study About Harassment Online and Offline By Peers

According to a new study by Pew Internet & American Life Project:

One in three teenagers say they’ve been bullied in some way online, but two-thirds of teens still believe they’re more likely to be harassed offline.

A peer that publishes private information about another teen is the most common form of cyberbullying reported.

The simplicity of being able to replicate and quickly transmit digital content makes bullying quite easy.

Key take away: Few communications are private anymore. The ubiquity of cameras and video, plus the ease and diversity of online communication/distribution (i.e. email, instant message, social networks) makes it all to easy to have information published without your teen’s permission.

It is critical to educate your teens not to disclose information about themselves or others online. If someone has violated that, you must act swiftly to put an end to it before the information propogates.

Please answer these quick polls and definitely read the Pew report (link below).

Related links:

• Pew Report on Cyberbullying
• Cnet article summarizing the Pew report
• Tips to Avoid Being Bullied
• Cyber Bullying Statistics
• Children bullying each other online
• Podcast Episode 5 “Fitting In”

Tips to Avoid Being Bullied

These tips originally appeared as part of an article titled Schools take aim at online bullying. The complete article about cyber bullying can be found in the March 19, 2007 edition of the NJ Star Ledger.

You Can’t Blame MySpace for Your Lack of Attention

Mashable had an informative article worth checking out.

Be thankful that when it comes to blaming the web for offline crimes, one judge has it figured out. The Texan parents who tried to sue MySpace for $30 million when their daughter was sexually assaulted by another MySpace user have had their case dismissed. What’s more, the judge said that the parents were negligent, not MySpace.

The 12-year Texan girl lied about her age on MySpace (she said she was 18) and met a 19-year-old man last summer for dinner and a movie. Afterwards, it’s alleged they had sex in a parking lot. The girl’s parents tried to sue MySpace for a whopping $30 million, accusing the site of negligence.

The decision supports a common sense belief that parents should not blame MySpace (or any other Web site) for the bad behaviour of your child.

This country has been tumbling down hill for decades with this stupid litigous mentality that someone else is always responsbile. I recently read about a lawsuit where a gun was stolen during a break-in at a sporting good store. Sometime later the stolen weapon was used to commit a murder. So the victim’s family sues everybody in sight: the store, the alarm company, the display case manufacturer, the gun manufacturer, the town, the state, etc. It’s ridiculous.

Children and teens are incredibly niave and imature.

The creep who manipulated the 12 year old should be punished severely. But MySpace is hardly to blame. I’m sorry, but these enabling excuses are poor arguements. Parents, blame yourself first if something goes wrong. Better yet, take steps to involve yourself in your children’s life now before something bad happens. Know what they are doing online, who their friends are, and where they go. IT’S YOUR JOB, whether you like it or not.

Check it out these articles:
Negligent Parents Blamed for MySpace Assault, Tom is a Free Man

MySpace Sued By Parents Who Don’t Keep an Eye on their Kids

Cyber Bullying Statistics

How common is cyber bullying?

90% of middle school students have had their feelings hurt online.

75% have visited a Web site bashing another student.

40% have had their password(s) stolen and changed by a bully who then locked them out of their own account or sent communications posing as them.

Only 15% of parents polled knew what cyberbullying was.

SOURCE: wiredsafety.org

Best advice: The moment something happens (i.e. child receives threats or you discover a negative Web site about your child), report it immediately to your local Police Department.

Don’t wait. Don’t try to talk to the school principal. Chances are the principal will tread lightly and be wishy-washy about getting involved in something that happened off school property and outside of school hours.

You need to stop this bad behavior immediately. Having a Police Officer show up at the bully’s parent’s house is a good way to get immediate attention to the seriousness of the situation.

If the bad behavior persists, don’t be afraid to take the other family to court and get a restraining order filed against them.

YOUR CHILD SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GROW UP IN FEAR.

BD-005 - Fitting In

About the challenges of fitting in with other children and how bullies can leave a life long scar.
- The lessons of a lonely childhood.
- Developing social skills.
- My seven year old gets in trouble for talking to girls at school.
- Mixed messages and confusion.

Sorry, no tech tip this time.

Coming soon… I’m planning to push a few fun, short videos in the podcast feed soon. It’s original humor fueled by my late night, over caffeinated mind. So please stay subscribed.

Roland

ABOUT:
The Bad Dad Radio podcast and blog is about bringing calm to the chaos of parenting. Please checkout the survival tactics and tech tips of a digital dad.

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What’s in a name?

I was browsing MySpace — yikes, what a mess — to stir up inspiration. I stumbled across a few posts of prospective moms asking input on baby names. It stopped me in my tracks. Bear with me while I share my experience.

(Flash back to the seventies.)

As I child, I was teased often for the name Roland. (It’s incredible the number of ways other stupid kids could make fun of it/me. I even begged my parents to change my name to Ronald before entering High School because I didn’t want more hassles. I seriously thought about using my middle name in High School just because I wanted a ‘normal’ name like the other guys, i.e. Michael, Anthony, David, Scott, Eric, James, Paul, Kevin, etc. (I think every class had at least three of each.)

It wasn’t until my twenties that I became comfortable with my name. I still get angry thinking back on how miserable others made me feel as a child.

(Fast forward to the late nineties.)

When my wife and I were planning to have children, I insisted we stick with strong names. No cute spellings. No obscure names. No names of months (April, August), colors (Magenta, Cyann, Sienna, Chartreuse), moods (Harmony, Sunny) or fruit (Apple). I wanted one syllable names that didn’t rhyme with any body parts. She agreed.

(Skip to 2007)

We have 4 boys, ages 3.75 to 7.75. We try to do everything possible to make our four boys feel strong and confident and remove annoying obstacles. I want them to have a good childhood to remember positively.

In my humble opinion…

I believe some parents get wrapped up in a weird distortion field where they believe a cute and truly unique name is best. But sometimes they fail to think about the baggage associated with names.

Before you start venting about raising children to be self-confident and thick skinned so name calling wont affect them, consider this. Being a child now is much harder than ever before. Children have enough to learn (education / social skills / physical skills) without having to be knocked down in confidence about their names.

It’s sad, but true. Other children can be terribly cruel, whether in Elementary or High School. It’s heart breaking to explain to my son why another child is constantly mean to them. I’ve had to start having those conversations lately. But that’s a different topic.

By the way, I know I’m not alone in this opinion. I know a half dozen adults who don’t use their first names. They’ve substituted nick names or middle names because they hate their first names.

What are your thoughts? I’d really like to hear your opinions on baby naming.
Roland

Related links:
Check out BabyNamer.com. They have a searchable database. Search on a name and click on “Teasing Drawbacks” (used to be called “baggage”) to see negative connotations associated with a proper name.