Bryan Rollins
Recently my daughter in middle school has been getting bullied online. The people who are bullying her are classmates. They say she only gets good grades because she is a teacher’s pet. What can she do? What can I do?
— Worried Mom
You definitely need to be aggressive in fighting these bullies. Directly report what is happening to the social media site or sites where the messages are coming from. After receiving a report, most social media sites will block their email address with your email provider and block their number from being able to send your child text messages.
You should also contact the appropriate person at your child’s school. The school needs to be aware that cyberbullying is occurring and deal appropriately with the cyberbullies. You should also check the laws in your state against cyber harassment. There is a lot of information out there to help you to know what to do, and the people mentioned above will provide you lots of information to get started.
Make sure that your daughter knows to never, never respond to a message, text, or post that contains bullying remarks. Doing so usually only makes the situation worse and is providing the reaction cyberbullies want. However, you might want to reply once telling the sender that this has been reported — and make sure you do the reporting. You can also change your child’s email address.
Keep a record of all the bullying messages. If you are unable to print out a message, you should take a screenshot. You will definitely need all this information to back up your words if you need to pursue a criminal or civil lawsuit.
Remember that often the child being cyberbullied is also being bullied in school. You need to make sure your child knows how much you love and support her and are willing to help her.
Parents should send questions and comments to dearteacher@dearteacher.com or to the Dear Teacher website. Compass Syndicate Corporation, 2018. Distributed by King Features Syndicate