Tips for Parents

Parents, your children need your help!
They will look to you for strategies to help solve those inevitable conflicts peacefully, avoid bullying situations, and encourage kindness to others.

Here are some tips from PAVE that may help YOU help THEM!

Identify:

• Ask your child what he/she thinks bullying is: Bullying is continuously and purposefully hurting others with words or actions.
• Discuss what types of behavior demonstrate bullying: Physical, social/emotional, (leaving people out, rumors, etc.) and verbal.
• Recognize and talk about bullying situations on television or in books.

Cope:

• Ask your child what he/she might do if bullied or were bullying others. Discuss good and bad reactions to bullying. Teach your children to stay calm and act and speak with confidence, to get away from the situation as soon as possible and tell an adult
• Encourage your child to talk with you about any issues! Make it clear that they can tell you ANYTHING!
• Watch for signs that your child might be being bullied; (sudden reluctance to attend school, loneliness, anger outbursts)

Prevent:

• Discuss the need to be sensitive to other people's feelings.
• Mention that people who show confidence (not aggressiveness!) are less likely to be bullied.
• Discuss your child's general behavior with him/her. Could he/she change his/her behavior to help prevent bullying?

If you would like to discuss any issues regarding your child and bullying, please feel free to contact me!

Lt. (retired) John Reis, the PAVE Project
401-464-2004 or by email at info@paveri.org
 

Keeping Youth Cyber-Safe

In just a few weeks, your students will be on winter break. Since it's likely they'll be spending more time online, they may be at increased risk of exposure to cyber bullying, which could adversely affect their emotional and physical health and school performance.

According to Nancy A. Willard, author of Cyber bullying and Cyber threats, “It is possible that the harm caused by cyber bullying may be even greater than harm caused by traditional bullying.” Some of Willard's reasons for this statement are that victims can’t escape from the bullying because the Internet is available all the time; it is difficult to remove material from the Internet once it’s posted; it is possible to distribute harmful material worldwide; and it is possible to bully anonymously.

Cyber bullying can range from threats, embarrassing or cruel rumors, harassment, and stalking to posting derogatory digital photos. According to a 2006 survey of 1,000 kids by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, one-sixth of all children between the ages of 6 and 11 had mean, threatening, or embarrassing things said about them online.

How Parents Can Help Children Become Cyber-Safe
Here are some topics you might talk with your children about before winter break to help protect them from cyber bullying.

Talk about Internet safety. Children need to be just as careful about opening a ‘cyber door’ as they are about opening the front door to strangers. They should never:
- Give out personal information online without a parent or guardian's permission      
- Respond to messages that are suggestive, belligerent, threatening, or make them feel uncomfortable    
- Click on any links in an email from someone they do not know  

Explain cyber bullying and what they can do to prevent it.  Help children understand that mean people on the Internet can hurt them with words, but that they can be safer if they:
- Don't respond to or forward emails or messages that are mean or spread rumors
- Don't open emails or messages from someone they know bullies others     
- Block messages from anyone who cyber bullies     
- Save or print all bullying messages     
- Show the messages to an adult they trust like a parent or a teacher
- Ask for help (if the first adult they tell doesn't help, they should keep telling until someone does)    
- Never arrange to meet someone who is bullying them online 

Sent By:
Committee for Children
568 First Avenue South, Suite 600
Seattle WA  98104-2804
USA