Member Questions

This is one of those things that keeps me up at night wishing I could create some sort of bubble for the girls that would let in the good but not the bad.
I did see on the news that although the state couldn't bring any charges against the mother, the federal government has brought her up on charges of fraud and (I think) using a computer to commit fraud. She is looking at definite jail time, I'm waiting to see what happens.
My husband and I decided that we wouldn't allow the girls to have computers in their rooms, that we would have computers in the family space, but that seems like such a little thing. The girls and I are very close now, and they always talk to me. M is a little private, and sometimes she says, "I want to talk later." I hope we can keep that up (they're 4 and 5).

We have had to deal with it and unfortunately, the kids get VERY secretative about it and absolutely will NOT talk to you, regardless of how good a relatiohship you have or don't have. And the sad thing is that, just like doing it in person, the bullies pick on those that they KNOW are vunerable. And let me tell you that GIRLS are 1000x worse than boys could ever be with this. Because of the ability to hide behind avatars, they'll do or say anything. What's even worse is that they'll post things on Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, that they'd never say if they were standing in front of the person.

What my husband and I found so amazing was that these kids, particularaly middle schoolers, will "date", but without ever having met in RL. Breakups are done online - they doing by psoting a public message online on their webspace. They have NO connection to real life and what they're really doing, nor the real life consequences of it. Their excuse is "it's online. All you have to do is shut it down." What they DON'T comprehend is once it's out there, it's out there and potentially all over the world in a matter of days. No longer is it just within a school or a small area. We're literally talking ALL OVER THE WORLD.

The sad thing with the incident you spoke of was that one of the people involved in the bullying case was a MOTHER. Quite frankly, I hope she gets the book thrown at her. My daughter had the mother of her boyfriend's x-girlfriend try to contact her and bully her. Fortunately, daughter told us and we got on-line with the mom. I told her that if she EVER tried this again, I was going to report her to the Police as a bully. She had NO right to become involved in the situation anyway. My daughter blocked her on IM and told the boyfriend. It stopped after that.

Because of being able to "hide" online, the kids have no conscience nor ability to process that what they're doing is wrong. And the ones who are bullied won't tell the parents, cause just as in RL, the excuse is "it only makes it worse." I think that if this mother in the KS case gets thrown in jail, as well she should, then it might just start to have a trickle down effect.