News, Advice, and Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Parents should be more concerned about online bullying and harassment, identity theft, loss of reputation from posting embarrassing photos, and the overuse of technology than online sexual predators, according to a new report from the government.

"Youth Safety on a Living Internet " produced by the Online Safety and Technology Working Group found that sexual predators are "not nearly in the prevalence once believed." Using statistics from the US Department of Justice, the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, and other studies, the authors found that teenagers who use MySpace and other social networks are not at increased risk from online predators.

However, cyberbullying is more common than most parents believe, and starts as early as second grade, according to the report. Sending suggestive pictures over the Internet is also not as common as parents believe. Identity theft is common among teenagers, who usually have clean credit histories.

The advice from the government group was for parents "to teach children respectful, civil behaviors to foster a safe Internet environment."
 

Labels: internet, online_safety, cyberbullying

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 1 Comment

Almost half of the 1000 teens in a survey commissioned by McAfee and conducted by Harris Interactive said they had given out information to strangers online, including their first names (36%), ages (28%), and e-mail addresses (19%).

Only 10% have given out more information, such as photos, names of their schools, last names, and cell phone numbers. No one reported giving out a Social Security number.

About 11% admitted to bullying someone online, and 8% had been victims of cyberbullying.

Over 90% said their parents trust their online behaviors, although more than half said their parents are unaware of exactly what those behaviors are.

Labels: internet, online_safety, cyberbullying

Posted By: By Parents For Parents 0 Comments

Teenagers who are bullied online suffer from higher levels of depression than those are involved in traditional kinds of bullying, according to a new article in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Traditional bullying involves physical or verbal taunting, teasing, or torment, or relational bullying, which is the exclusion of a person from a group. Cyberbullying is tormenting someone via computer or cell phone, such as by broadcasting lewd pictures of the person, repeating or creating harmful gossip, and so forth.

• Previous research has shown that traditional bullies and their victims have higher than average levels of depression.
• This new study found that cyberbullying is the hardest for victims.
• Dr. Jing Wang and his colleagues at the National Institute of Health analyzed data on 7313 students in grades six to ten who took part in the Health Behavior in School Aged Children 2005 Survey.
• The percentage of children involved in physical, verbal, relational, and cyberbullying was 21%, 54%, 52%, and 14% , respectively.
• Victims of cyberbullying had the highest levels of depression among the four groups, although all groups suffered higher than average levels of depression.

"Notably, cyber victims reported higher depression than bullies or bully-victims, which was not found in any other form of bullying," said Dr. Wang. "This may be explained by some distinct characteristics of cyberbullying. For example, unlike traditional victims, cyber victims may experience an anonymous attacker who instantly disperses fabricated photos throughout a large social network; as such, cyber victims may be more likely to feel isolated, dehumanized or helpless at the time of the attack."
 

Labels: depression, bullying, cyberbullying

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment