Behind every bully, cyber or otherwise, is more than likely a crappy parent. Maybe they’re abusing their kids. Maybe they’re brushing off their kid’s behavior as “hijinks.” But, speaking from personal experience, these people will never accept their kid is an a-hole because it means that they, the parent, screwed up — and that is just not acceptable, because they are perfect and therefore their crotchfruit are perfect by proxy.
So, how to solve this? First of all, actually fund social workers. Seriously, these people don’t have the funding to deal with their case load. Give them the money to do their jobs and take kids out of abusive homes. That will solve some of the problem right there.
Secondly, pass a law that makes the parent financially accountable for the bully’s behavior. If the school nurse has to patch a kid up after he’s been beaten and tossed in a dumpster, the kid responsible goes home with a letter and a bill that shows up on your credit report. If a teacher has to spend an hour helping a girl weeping inconsolably in a toilet stall because everybody thinks she’s a pregnant slut, everybody who spreads the rumor goes home with a ticket. And if they’re not paid, you don’t graduate.
Seriously, this could work. Parents will brush off notes from the school as minor problems some administrator is fussing over pointlessly or “he said she said” – ask any teacher. Being told their kid has racked up fines that they, the parents, have to pay will get the point across a lot faster.
Granted, this is roughly as Constitutional as stripping the anonymity from the Internet (that is, not at all). There’s also no legislative will, here, either: kids don’t vote, parents do, and asking a parent to admit their child is not perfect is political suicide.
But if you really want to solve the problem, if you really want to help people and stop bullying, you have to make the parents care. And unfortunately, unless you hit them in the wallet, they won’t.
(Image courtesy Miss Blackflag on Flickr)
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“they are perfect and therefore their crotchfruit are perfect by proxy.” Well done sir. Well done.
The issue with cyberbullying is when it bleeds into real life. Things people post on your facebook profile get repeated in person, especially in a school setting. Or the rampant use of Topix as a community defamation board in small towns has real life consequences. Even removing yourself from the internet will not stop others from discussing you.
Yes, and other people disucssing you behind your back is not bullying. Ergo …
You’re right, you’re right, you had it soooo much worse. Kids these days don’t get how much better they have it because their bullying takes place on the internet, which is now a completely inextricable part of a teenager’s social life. It really IS just as easy as turning off their computer, just like it was as easy for you to “just ignore them.” Vile, damaging rumors will, of course, stop once the target is off their computer. If they take down their facebook page, no bullies would ever just, you know, create a fake one with their name and start new and possibly more damaging rumors. This article is not just in bad taste, it plays directly into the willfully ignorant mindset of today’s adults who refuse to believe that something online cannot hurt a child as much as something which takes place “in the real world.” Do you not get by now that for millions of teenagers the internet is just as much a part of their daily lives as “the real world?” Telling someone to “disappear” their digital selves is like saying you should have just hidden better from the people bullying you. The onus should NOT be on the victim to do a better job avoiding the guilty fuckers out to get them…
I always preferred rumors and glittery MySpace insults to being beaten while waiting for the bus in the morning. . I even preferred the insults spray painted on actual walls. But you’re right, my life wasn’t as based on the internet as the “kids these days”. Maybe going off line is the equivalent to me switching schools to hide, back in the young days of the internets. But it also seems like you’re reading a lot more into the tone of this article then is there. I didn’t get the feeling that he’s just an old crank complaining to the kids about “back in his day”. Maybe from the title, but not from the rest of the article.
I don’t think Dan said he had it worse. I mean, I assume “real-life” bullying still happens for these kids as well, so they have everything Dan had, plus the cyber-stuff.
Anyway, of course the onus shouldn’t be on the victim — that’s why the second page of this article is there. But the shitty reality of the shitty world in which we live is that bullying will likely never go away, and the only practical approach to dealing with it is for the victim to be strong (and smart) and well-supported.