Identifying and Addressing Cyber Bullying 2 CE Hours
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Chapter 3: Identifying and Addressing Cyber Bullying 2 CE Hours By: Kathryn Brohl, MA, LMFT Learning objectives After completing this course, learners should be able to: Understand the difference between cyber bullying and other types Define cyber bullying. of bullying. Understand the impact of cyber bullying on targets. Understand what schools and parents can do to help address cyber Understand how to address cyber bullying with clients and their bullying. families. Assist clients with identifying resources. Understand the different ways technology is being used to bully Understand what schools and communities do to help prevent cyber individuals. bullying. Advocate against cyber bullying. Throughout this course the word “youth” refers to “teens” and Describe cyber bullies. adolescents.” Introduction Cyber bullying can be very damaging to children, youth, young adults, Brandon was aware. Instead of lying “low” and hoping the cyber and even adults. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and even suicide. bullying would simply go away, he took action. He demonstrated Once things are circulated on the Internet, they may never disappear, courage as a 6th grader by reporting the cyber assault immediately, and resurfacing later to renew the pain of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is a was able to talk about it years later. pervasive problem. Brandon was one of the survivors of cyber bullying. While still affected, The following story has, sadly, become more common: he was able to come out of the other side and discuss his experience Brandon did not have friends in 6th grade, and often ate alone at and move forward with his life. Other targets of cyber bullying are not lunch, following his move to a new school. He knew no one at the so fortunate. The next story touches every counseling professional, and school. While browsing MySpace one day, he saw that someone parent who loses a client or child as a result of this terrible cyber assault from school had posted a bulletin -- a message visible to multiple terrorizing, not only children, youth, and young adults, but adults as well. people -- declaring that he was a “fag.” Students he had never even Jessica Logan 1990–2008 – Jessica (Jessie) was a petite, blond- spoken with wrote on it, too, saying they agreed. Feeling confused haired, blue-eyed Ohio high school senior who committed suicide and upset, Brandon wrote in his comments asking his classmates after sexting a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend. When they why they would make those comments. The response on MySpace broke up, he sent the photo to everyone at her school. Jessie was stated that a group of 12 kids wanted to beat him up, and that he cruelly bullied for months by the other girls at her school, who should stop going to school and die. On his walk from his locker called her a slut and a whore. When Jessie’s grades dropped, she to the school office to report what was happening, students yelled started skipping school and when she did go to school, she would things like “fag” and “fatty.” “It was just crazy, and such a shock hide in the bathroom to avoid being assaulted. to my self-esteem that people didn’t like me without even knowing me,” said Brandon, now 18 and a senior in high school in Oregon. Jessie Logan decided to tell her story on a Cincinnati television “I didn’t understand how that could be.” station. Her purpose was simple: “I just want to make sure no one else will have to go through this again.” The interview was in May 2008. Two months later, on July 3, 2008, Jessie attended the funeral The American Academy of Pediatrics calls of a boy who committed suicide, then came home and killed herself. cyber bullying “the most common online Her mother found her hanging in the closet with Jessie’s cell phone risk for all teens. [youth]” on the floor nearby. Child and youth statistics The research results for past years below reflect whom and how many had been cyber-bullying victims. A 2004 survey conducted by children and youth are cyber bullied. Research on cyber bullying is i-Safe America of 1556 adolescents found that 42 percent had been growing. However, because technology use changes rapidly with bullied online. As many as 25 percent of teenagers have experienced children and youth, it is difficult to design surveys that accurately cyber bullying at some point, said Justin W. Patchin, who studies capture trends with regard to those populations. the phenomenon at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He and ● According to the 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1 colleagues have conducted formal surveys of 15,000 middle and high in 6 U.S. high school students were bullied through e-mail, chat school students throughout the United States, and found that about rooms, instant messaging, websites, or texting in the previous year. 10 percent of teens have been victims of cyber bullying in the last 30 Another recent survey found that 26 percent of teens were bullied or days. “In our research, about 85 percent of the time, the target knows harassed via text messages or phone calls. who the bully is, and it’s usually somebody from their social circle,” ● Cyber bullying incidents more than quadrupled in five years between Patchin said. Patchin’s research has also found that, while cyber 2000 and 2005. A 2000 survey by the Crimes Against Children bullying is, in some sense, easier to perpetrate, the kids who bully Research Center at the University of New Hampshire reported online also tend to bully at school. “Technology is not necessarily 6 percent of young people had experienced some form of cyber creating a whole new class of bullies,” he said. 55 percent did not bullying. In 2005, studies of 1500 Internet-using adolescents found know who had cyber bullied them. that over one third had been cyber bullied and half of those admitted ● About one in every three children between the ages of 12 and 17 to cyber bullying others (Hinduja and Patchin, In Review). A 2005 years and one in every six kids ages 6 to 11 years are victims of study by National Children’s Home Charity revealed that 20 percent cyber bullying, according to a national poll. And officials say the Psychology.EliteCME.com Page 31 mean, threatening, or embarrassing Internet missives are not only behavior and its negative outcomes among adolescent populations anonymous, but they are becoming more prevalent in today’s digital (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). age (McCarthy, 2006). Despite the potential damage of cyber bullying, it is alarmingly ● Reuters reported that a growing number of American children say common among children and youth. It is rare that an online bully will they have been picked on via text messaging, including having be a total stranger. According to cyber bullying statistics from the rumors spread about them or being threatened, a study says. Of i-SAFE foundation: more than 1,000 middle school and high school students surveyed in ● More than half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, 2008, 24 percent said they had been “harassed” by texting – up from and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying. 14 percent in a survey of the same students the year before. ● More than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyber threats online. ● The 2008–2009 School Crime Supplement (National Center for ● More than 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics) indicates that 6 repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet. percent of students in grades 6 through 12 experienced cyber bullying. ● More than half of young people do not tell their parents when cyber ● The 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey finds that bullying occurs. 16 percent of high school students (grades 9 through 12) were electronically bullied in the past year. The Harford County Examiner reported similar cyber bullying statistics: ● Around half of youth have been the victims of cyber bullying. The Cyberbullying Research Center also completed a series of surveys ● Only 1 in 10 youth tells a parent if they have been a cyber-bully that resulted in these cyber bullying statistics: victim. ● More than 80 percent of youth use a cell phone regularly, making ● Fewer than 1 in 5 cyber bullying incidents are reported to law it the most popular form of technology and a common medium for enforcement. cyber bullying. ● 1 in 10 youth have had embarrassing or damaging pictures taken of ● About half of young people have experienced some form of cyber themselves without their permission, often using cell phone cameras. bullying, and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly. ● About 1 in 5 youth have posted or sent sexually suggestive or nude ● Mean, hurtful comments and spreading rumors are the most pictures of themselves to others. common type of cyber bullying. ● Girls are somewhat more likely than boys to be involved in cyber ● Girls are at least as likely as boys to be cyber bullies or their victims. bullying. ● Boys are more likely to be threatened by cyber bullies than girls. ● Cyber bullying affects all races. Cell phones and computers themselves are not to blame for cyber ● Cyber bullying victims are more likely to have low self-esteem and bullying. Social media sites can be used for positive activities, like to consider suicide (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013). During childhood and connecting with friends and family, with school and work, and for adolescence, many behavioral choices are influenced and conditioned entertainment. But these tools can also be used to hurt other people.