Is your kid being cyber-bullied?

Kids who bully find a way. They pound you in the school yard, or a group of girls whisper and giggle while looking at you. And now, there’s the new method: they’ll get at you over the Internet.

Don’t wave it away — this is real. U of T’s Faye Mishna conducted a survey in 2008 among 2,186 Toronto students and found that 50% had been bullied over the Internet. The abuse has become so bad that the Canadian Teachers’ Federation wants cyber
bullying added to the list of offenses in the criminal code.

Mishna is the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Chair in Child and Family at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. A specialist in children’s mental health as both a clinician and academic for 30 years, she is one of the go-to experts on how bullies ply their trade using the Internet. Resources like Kids Helpline regularly seek out her expertise.

She defines bullying as “intentionally and repetitively hurting someone and causing distress through the use of power. With cyber bullying it’s even worse — the Internet enables the threat to be sent everywhere, so the repetition is greater.”

How to ease the problem? “Yes, parents must monitor use of the Internet. But we have to do more than that — the key is to learn how to identify the signs of cyber bullying and the kids being victimized by it. This is where research comes into play.”

And a network approach is vital. “Parents, the police, teachers, lawmakers, and child protection and health agencies must get together to devise systematic, formalized approaches to helping kids with this problem.”