A Conspiracy to Conceal It
WiredSafety’s surveys reflect that only 5% of students would tell their
parents if they were being targeted by a cyberbully. When Teenangels conducted
a survey of their own, they learned that less than 25% of the students would
tell anyone if they were being
cyberbullied.
Why? The answer is different for parents than another trusted adult.
Parents have the power to make their lives miserable. They can turn off the
Internet, take away cellphones, computers, and gaming devices, pick up the
phone and call other parents, the school, or their lawyers. They run too hot
and overreact, or too cold and underestimate the pain the cyberbully causes.
The students don’t want their parents to discover that they are not as
popular in school as hoped. They don’t want to look like they can’t take care
of themselves. They don’t want their parents to find out that they were doing
things they shouldn’t or to learn the information the cyberbully is threatening
to expose.
Parents might start monitoring or filtering everything, spying, or being
overly attentive to what the student is doing online. The parents may demand
passwords to all accounts and use them, confront the cyberbully or their
parents, call the police, or blow things out of proportion. The cyberbullying
may become the topic of discussion over the Thanksgiving table or the source of
teasing or bullying by siblings.
If their current or former friends were the cyberbullies, the victim,
interestingly, may try and protect them or avoid having them punished. They
don’t want to be termed a “tattletale” or have the cyberbully escalate their
actions because they “told.” They may have responded using inappropriate
language or threats of their own. The list goes on and on.
They are reluctant to share with their “friends” and not sure if the
cyberbully is one of those in whom they are confiding. With anonymous
cyberbullying they can’t be sure if the cyberbully is their best friend or
worst enemy. Friends are armed with their secrets and passwords and sometimes
the cyberbully poses as one of their friends. They don’t know where to turn or
whom to trust.
Trusting their teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators
is a bit different. In this case, they worry that the school will refuse to get
involved. (This fear is often well-founded.) They fear their uninformed
involvement even more. When well-meaning school administrators get involved,
they often call everyone in and try to get to the bottom of things. This only
makes things worse and sets up the victim for more harassment from the
cyberbully, their friends, and everyone in the class who sees the victim as
“squealing.”
Even when the school administrators do the right thing, it can backfire.
On a recent Tyra Banks Show, Parry met a young student who had reported her
classmates taking her picture with their cellphone while in the locker room at
school. (She and other girls were dancing in various stages of undress.) The
cyberbully threatened to post the pictures on Facebook and the girl panicked
and went to the principal, who promptly called in the girls and confiscated the
cellphone. The entire class turned on the victim, saying she had blown it all
out of proportion. She was victimized twice—once by the girls and again by the
class.
An interesting exercise for students is to ask them to see how many
reasons they can come up with why they wouldn’t tell their parents about being
cyberbullied. Parry has never gotten them to come up with more than 57
different reasons. See if you can beat her record and share the reasons you
find. They can be illuminating. If we understand why they don’t share this or
trust their parents, we can find ways to address their concerns and change this
pattern. We can also find ways to make sure that they trust guidance
counselors, teachers, and school administrators so they don’t have to face this
alone.
The challenge we all face is how we can intervene without feeding the
cyberbullies. There are no easy answers on this one, just some approaches that
have worked for others. An effective strategy is to get peer counselors
involved and create a cyberbullying taskforce for the school, including
students in crafting responses and consequences of cyberbullying activities.
Make sure you include the consequences for bystanders.
Whatever you do, do it carefully and thoughtfully. Ask the victim first
before you take any action other than those needed to protect them or others.
Remember, cyberbullying hurts. The first thing we need to do is address that
hurt. Bring in the guidance counselors to help. The more advance preparation
and planning the school does, the faster and better you can respond when these
things occur.
