Parents and teachers can take several actions to help address cyberbullying. For parents, this includes talking to their children, monitoring their online activities, and addressing any bullying incidents directly with the school. For teachers, key actions are assessing cyberbullying at their school, developing clear policies, providing staff training, teaching digital citizenship skills to students, and partnering with parents. Addressing cyberbullying requires cooperation between parents, teachers, and the whole school community.

1. What can Parents and Teachers
do?
How can Parents and Teachers positively get
involved with the issue of Cyber-bullying.
By: Joanna Nieves

2. What can Parents Do?
 The latest research shows that one in three
children are directly involved in bullying as a
perpetrator, victim, or both. And many of those
who are not directly involved witness others being
bullied on a regular basis. No child is immune—
kids of every race, gender, grade and socio-
economic sector are impacted. But it doesn’t
have to be this way. As parents we have the
power to help reduce bullying.

3. Ten Actions ALL Parents Can Take
to Help Eliminate Bullying
 Talk with and listen to  Establish household
your kids—everyday. rules about bullying.
 Spend time at school  Teach your child how
and recess. to be a good witness
 Be a good example of or positive bystander.
kindness and  Teach your child
leadership. about cyber-bullying.
 Learn the signs.  Spread the word that
 Create healthy anti- bullying should not be
bullying habits early. a normal part of
childhood
 Help your child’s
school address
bullying effectively.

4. Parents
 If you think your child is being bullied, it's
time to take action…now. Bullying is not
something that just goes away on its own, it is not
something that children can just “work out”
without mediation, and it is not something kids will
just naturally outgrow. If you know (or think) that
your child is being bullied, your participation is
critical to a successful outcome.

5. Ten Actions Parents Can Take If
Their Child Has Been Bullied
 Make it safe for your child to  Don’t go it alone.
talk to you.  If cyber-bullying is an
 Teach your child to say issue, teach your child to bring it
“Stop!” or go find an adult. to the attention of an
 Talk with your child’s adult, rather than responding to
principal and classroom the message.
teacher about the situation.  Help your child become more
 Arrange opportunities for resilient to bullying.
your child to socialize with  Provide daily and ongoing
friends outside of school to support to your child by
help build and maintain a listening and maintaining
strong support system. ongoing lines of
 Encourage your child to stick communication.
with a friend (or find someone  Follow Up.
that can act as a buddy) at
recess, lunch, in the hallways,
on the bus, or walking home.

6. Parents
 Learning that your child is involved in bullying
behavior can be a tough blow to any parent.
Before you get angry or upset, take a breath.
Social skills develop gradually over the school
years, and for many children, this includes
learning and experimenting with power and
relationships. It’s important that you work steadily
and compassionately to get your child back on
track. There’s a lot you, as a parent, can do to
help your child learn from the situation and
become a more productive and supportive part of
her peer group. Here are 10 actions you can take
today to help create better outcomes for both

7. Ten Actions Parents Can Take if
Your Child is Bullying Others
 Have an honest and firm  Your behavior teaches
conversation with your your children how to
child. behave.
 Make a commitment to  Spend time getting to
help your child find know your child.
healthy ways to resolve  Be realistic and patient.
conflict and to stop
bullying others.  Continue to work and
communicate with school
 Schedule an appointment staff for as long as it takes.
to talk with school staff
including your child’s  Don’t be afraid to ask for
teacher(s) and the school help.
counselor.
 Develop clear and
consistent family rules for
behavior and follow
through on your child’s
compliance to those rules.
 Monitor your child’s
behavior at home closely.

8. Statistics about Parents and Cyber-
bullying
 According to two surveys—one of principals and
one of parents conducted by Education.com and
NAESP, only 31 percent of parents feel fully
prepared to handle the situation when their child
has been a victim of bullying. Parents feel slightly
more confident about what to do when their child
has witnessed bullying (40 percent) or when their
child has bullied other children (43 percent).
 The Education.com survey also revealed that
only 27% of parents believe their school's staff
and parents are well aligned on anti-bullying
efforts while the survey of NAESP members
revealed that only 14% of principals believe
parents and school efforts are completely aligned.

9. What can Teachers Do?
 Experts say that schools need to stop worrying
about external internet predators and take on the
threat within: cyber-bullying
 The response from many schools was initially to
teach internet safety in terms of protection from
the two P's: predators and pornography.
 Many experts now believe this was very much the
wrong approach.

10. Teachers
 The focus today, Agatston and Magid
agree, should be on empowering kids to be good
digital citizens.
 A school’s focus should be more on the following:
how to protect personal information, interact in
social forums, deal with cyber-bullying, and
critically judge online information are all among
these vital skills.
 "We let them assume responsibility for their own
learning and their own online experience," says
Linda Burch, Common Sense Media's chief
education and strategy officer.

11. Teachers
 "Bullying and cyber-bullying have a lot in
common, but in many ways, cyber-bullying is
even more pernicious," says Anne Schreiber, vice
president of education content at Common Sense
Media.
 Administrators can't shrug off issues of cyber-
bullying by arguing that the bulk of the issues
happen with kids outside of school or that they
simply don't have time in the school day.
 Addressing cyber-bullying in school improves
attendance as well as students' focus on their
schoolwork.

12. Teacher and Staff Training is Key
 According to a 2010 survey from the National
Cyber Security Alliance, just 50 percent of
teachers who participated in the study felt
prepared to discuss cyber-bullying.
 Over three quarters of teachers surveyed spent
less than six hours on any type of professional
development education related to cyber-
ethics, cyber-safety, and cyber-security within the
last 12 months.
 At school, many districts are in need of expanding
or revising their policies and procedures around
dealing with these important 21st century issues.

13. How Teachers can Help Prevent
Cyber-bullying
 Assess cyber-bullying: Effective  Spend class time on the topic of cyber-
bullying prevention programs begin with bullying and positive digital citizenship:
an assessment of the problem in your Classroom discussions should be part of the
school or district. regularly held discussions on bullying and
cover such topics as defining cyber-bullying;
 Develop clear policies: Policies should school policies and rules regarding cyber-
address both on-campus and off-campus bullying; how to report cyber-bullying
acts that have or could have a substantial behavior; how to best respond to cyber-
disruption on student learning or safety. bullying behavior; and the bystander role as
it applies to cyber-bullying.
 Provide staff training: Just as staff
training is needed to adequately address  Teach students online "netiquette," safe
bullying behavior and encourage positive use of social media, and how to monitor
bystander behavior, training on their online reputation: These vital social
preventing and responding to cyber- skills also have an impact on job
preparedness, as social technology is
bullying, as well as the broader topic of increasingly being incorporated into most
encouraging positive digital citizenship, is career paths. Lessons can be infused
a necessary part of any digital citizenship throughout the curriculum where
program. appropriate. Discussions can take place
 Train and utilize student mentors: when using technology in the classroom as
Effective prevention programming well as when addressing career and college
includes incorporating youth guidance.
leadership, particularly to address school  Form parent/community/school
climate issues. Making use of student partnerships: Everyone has a role to play in
leadership sends a strong message to encouraging positive digital citizenship.
other youth and also recognizes that the Schools need to partner with parents and
peer group often has more legitimacy community organizations in making sure that
than the teacher in addressing social there is a consistent message about the
responsible and ethical use of technology.
issues.

14. Can you Spot a Bully when you see
One?
 School districts should work to foster a school
environment where young people are free to
express themselves and their identity online, but
do it in a safe, thoughtful, and respectful manner.

15. References
 Gillesppie, Nick. (03/30.2012). Stop Panicking about Bullies. The Wall
Street Journal. Saturday Edition, Section C1. Retrieved 04/01/2012, from
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577311664105
746848.html
 Levy, Peter.(05/02/11).Confronting Cyberbullying. The Journal, Digital
Citizenship Feature, page 49, Retrieved: April 1st, 2012, from
http://thejournal.com/Articles/2011/05/02/Confronting-
Cyberbullying.aspx?p=1
 PRNewswire.(03/22/2012). Education.com Reveals that 1/3 of Parents
Uncertain how to Handle Cyberbullying. YahooFinance.com, Press
Release, Retrieved 04/01/12, from
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/education-com-reveals-one-third-
130000094.html
 All of these were created by www.education.com
http://www.education.com/topic/school-bullying-teasing/?cid=20.20
http://www.education.com/reference/article/ten-actions-to-eliminate-
bullying/?cid=20.20
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bullies/?cid=20.20
http://www.education.com/reference/article/actions-take-child-involved-
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