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WHEN DEALING WITH BULLYING By Brenda High, Director, Bully Police USA Download: http://www.bullypolice.org/dealing_with_bullying.pdf, for a printable copy. PART I I know how parents feel when
they realize their child has been bullied at school. In your mind,
you want to immediately run down to your child’s school, grab some Administrator
or Teacher by the throat, and yell at him/her. However, stay calm
and think about how your child is feeling. They probably did not
want to come to you and tell you about the bullying because they believe
that if you say or do something about it, the bullying might get worse.
Sometimes they are right in their fears, but if your complaint process
is handled right, more often than not, the bullying will stop.
Get the story of the bullying as correct as possible from your child Listen to your child with
your heart and with your mind. Let your child know they have done
the right thing by coming to talk to you and that you will find a way to
help solve this problem. Get your child’s ideas on what they think
is the best action to take. Your child is feeling like they have
lost control of their school life and that someone else, the bully, is
controlling them. Let them know that you will be on their side, (their
“lawyer”) and will find a solution. Ask for their cooperation if
there needs to be minor changes on their part, (i.e. a few changes in behavior,
dress, or social skills).
Think about how you will approach the school If the school has no knowledge that your child being bullied, then it is fair to give the school a reasonable amount of time to work out minor problems to your child's and your satisfaction as a parent. Request a daily update from
your school, and from the teacher, if the bullying happened in his/her
classroom. A “fair” amount of time is about one school week.
Remind your school that every day your child is being bullied is like an
eternity to him/her and your child wants the bullying to stop.
Document everything! Pretend you are a lawyer
and put EVERYTHING in writing. Tape record statements, type them up and
have witnesses sign the statements. Take pictures of injuries, places
(buildings), people, etc.
After communicating with an administrator, write a recap of what was said. Fax a copy to the administrator and ask them to correct or change anything that is incorrect or any misunderstandings. Let the administrator know that you will be doing this so that he/she is clear about your desire to solve the bullying. This will assure all parties involved that solutions to the bullying of your child are what you want for an outcome. Try hard to control the anger
you may be having over the bullying. The “poison pen” document full
of anger will not accomplish anything and administrator and teachers may
have the natural reaction to become angry back. We are all human,
well most of us are all human ?. Administrators will be more willing
to help if you act and write statements about your child’s bullying situation
in a mature and diplomatic way. Keeping and sharing detailed documents
will help the school admit that they have a problem with bullying and that
they must take responsibility.
Online Bullying or Cyberbullying If your child is being bullied online, copy EVERYTHING. Save all emails or instant-message conversations. You may feel that you cannot
do anything about online bullying because you cannot find the cyberbully.
This may not always be true. Computer specialists can track down
internet provider addresses of offending websites, and there are computer
whizzes that are making a living off fines collected from email spammers.
Some police departments have hired these specialists to work in their criminal
investigation departments and a good computer and internet investigator
is in high demand. If your son or daughter is getting threatening
email, your local police department may be able to help or lead you to
a private investigator with computer skills. If the emails are terrorist
type threats, report this immediately to the police, who will then report
it to the F.B.I.
Parents sign a service agreement when they sign up for internet services Here are some examples of service agreements with internet providers and/or hosts to websites, (i.e. AOL, MSN, XO, Earthlink, etc.) WebPages - By applying to register a domain name, or by asking us to maintain or renew a domain name registration, you hereby represent and warrant to us that (a) the statements that you made in connection with such application for registration, maintenance, or renewal are complete and accurate; (b) to your knowledge, the registration of the domain name will not infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations. You agree and acknowledge that it is your responsibility to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else's rights... YOU REPRESENT THAT, TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF, NEITHER THE REGISTRATION OF THE DOMAIN NAME YOU HAVE APPLIED FOR NOR THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS INTENDED TO BE OR IS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY USED INFRINGES THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY. How law enforcement can get your information - …may disclose personal information about Visitors or Members, or information regarding your use of the Services or Web sites accessible through our Services, for any reason if, in our sole discretion, we believe that it is reasonable to do so, including: to satisfy laws, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, regulations, or governmental or legal requests for such information; to disclose information that is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our Acceptable Use Policy or other user policies; to operate the Services properly; or to protect our Members. The parents of students who are doing the bullying may be liable for the emotional damages caused by their child to another child. If the cyberbullys’ parents know what is going on (or had received a letter of complaint), they have “knowledge and notice” of harmful activity. The parents are paying for the telephone bill and internet charges into their home – they are legally responsible for the acts of their children while on the computer and in their care. Parents can be sued for damages. Inform your school administrators about the cyberbullying your child is experiencing. If cyberbullying happens on school time or with school computers, schools come under the “knowledge and notice” rule. If, while a child is being cyberbullied, he/she is threatened to be “beat up” or assaulted while they are in school, the schools must take responsibility for activities that follow a child from their home to their school. "I was just reading through http://www.jaredstory.com/bullying_whattodo.html ... and I thought I'd pass along some inside information for your section on online bullying. I used to work at a large Canadian ISP owned by Tucows, and part of my job there was to deal with abuse complaints. I was also responsible for much of the early research done by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (www.caip.ca) on spam and abuse. I left the industry in the late 90's but I still maintain some contacts in the business. "The other thing I always told complainants was to be on their 100% best, most courteous behavior no matter what the bully says to them online. I know it isn't fair to be told you can't tell a bully what a jerk they are ...but if you are as nasty to them as they are to you, the ISP administrator could decide the exchange is essentially mutual. I had to do that quite a few times - things had gotten so bad, that it was impossible to tell who had started things, and neither side was prepared to be the first to let it go. If you are always polite, and insist only that the bully leave you alone, or better yet, do that once and do not respond to them at all, it will be clear who the bully really is. "There are also technological tools that can help deal with online bullies. Most Instant Messenger programs, and virtually all email and Usenet readers have what we old time Internet folks call "twit filters". They can be called filters or "rules" in some programs. Look in the help files for them. Just block the bully out. Online, it does not pay to "fight back". Block them, ignore them, filter them out. "Where this will not work is when a bully posts threatening or defamatory information on a web page. It is very important that before you complain that you PRINT THE PAGE. The ISP won't likely keep a copy, nor will they monitor it. That is up to you. Keep it in your "bully binder" where you keep your other documentation. Find the ISP's "Terms of Service" document - many of them have abuse pages where they post what they will and won't tolerate. We took down many sites without requiring a court order - because they were threatening or defamatory, they were in clear violation of our TOS. "You may want to monitor web sites for your child's name - the search sites, like Google, can be useful for this. Google even has an "alerts" page http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en that will email you when new pages are posted with keywords you specify ... I do not know how comprehensive this is, but it is worth a shot, and it is free. The ISP won't do this - they don't have the technology, nor will they ever choose to have it, there is too much liability for them. They rely on people to complain when they find objectionable material, rather than actively seeking it out. "You may also use tools like http://www.spectorsoft.com/ to monitor your child's Internet use if you believe that they are being bullied but will not speak up about it. This program, and others like it, will help in capturing every possible instance of online bullying in just about all the different programs your child may use. You might not like the idea of spying on your child, but if you do nothing, the outcome could be far worse." Brandi Jasmine - Stop Bullying Now!
Ontario Director - Bully Police Canada
GO TO PART III Download: http://www.bullypolice.org/dealing_with_bullying.pdf, for a printable copy. This article is the intellectual property of Brenda High, Director, Bully Police USA and may be used for educational purposes without permission. Please credit Brenda High & www.bullypolice.org |
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