Free puppies rarely end lives, a keyboard and mouse can

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"...that doorway is not to the bedroom, but a doorway to the streets"

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I am sure by now, most have seen Amanda Todd's video. I suppose that this terrible case is being grouped in with the Cyber Bullying outrage of late, but of course this stalking, threatening, and ultimately life ending situation extends way beyond what most of us consider bullying.

What it does bring to light, is the fact that our homes are no longer a place of safety, protection from the evils of those who wish to do us harm. We are all very well conditioned from the age of learning to understand spoken word, not to take candy from strangers, never get in a strangers vehicle (regardless of the reason), never let a stranger touch you. JUST SAY NO and run! It is like a mantra, that has been repeated thousands  of times to us as we find freedom of bike rides around the block alone, ventures to the playground a few blocks away, a walk to the store. The image is like a Norman Rockwell painting of a mother or father, bent over looking a child in the eye, with a pointed finger, reviewing the rules about strangers as the child is anxious to get out to find some freedom out of the safety of their home.

These doorway warnings were effective, as I recall personally, very clearly - swinging on a swing set . keeping an eye out for strangers, slow moving cars, men walking alone.. we were all well conditioned to these dangers.

As adults, I am sure our children are now equally tattooed with these warnings. It is easy to play the role that you parents played. Our children today are just as aware of the rules of staying safe around strangers in the park. But today - our children leave the dooryard with an iPhone in their pocket, and more often than not, visiting a friend to sit in front of a laptop computer screen. A true note of irony, is that often we supply our children with phones so we can be a call away from any danger they may face in the outside world.

What Norman Rockwell would never paint, is the image of a mother or father, bent over - eye to eye, instructing their children at the doorway of their children's bedrooms, of the dangers of strangers lurking behind a few clicks of a computer keyboard and internet access. Debatable I am sure, but personally, I feel children are in much more danger in front of a webcam, than climbing monkey bars in a park.

Any parent would panic to discover their son/daughter deep in conversation with a middle aged man alone on a playground or at a mall. I expect that this would be a rare occurrence anyway, as our children know full well not to let this happen.

So, why, why, why, are children/teens not tattooed with the dangers that lurk on their home computer? If you are reading this blog, you are obviously computer literate enough for me not to have to ramble on with the tools that predators.. and even worse, soon to be predators use to gain the trust and confidence of our children. Predators are not just the typical old creepy man with high-speed internet access into his darkened basement. Sure, there are predators that used to be the men that cruised playgrounds, and have just changed their tools of the trade to include the much easier internet to lure. But now there are peers, ex-girl/boy friends, young men and women are now able to freely communicate with our children for despicable motives.

I expect that as our children begin their experience with computers, we explain how there are bad people out there on the internet.. so be careful. But we would never limit a warming as dismissive as this if they were off to spend their first time at a park, or their first solo walk to the store.

The internet experience is so completely different (obviously).. a young girl would never be approached by an acquaintance on a walk to the store, be talked into exposing themselves, have a photo taken and that photo is held like blackmail against them with threat that the photo will be reprinted a thousand times and mailed to everyone they know. But on the internet this is a five minute chat, a click of a button.. and it is done. Is this form danger as clearly detailed to our children as the danger of a tinted window van with a driver offering free puppies???

It is a sad state, but until, the REAL and complete threats of the internet are repeated as many times, and monitored as much as strangers in the park.. we will have many more horror stories like Amanda Todd's repeated over and over again.

So, as your daughter, giggling along with her friends zip off to the bedroom to play on the computer.. maybe imagine that doorway is not to the bedroom, but a doorway to the outdoors, to the streets, where you cannot see their every activity and keep them safe. Do they have all of the tools to know what they should and should not do?

Bullying - Part II

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We need to clearly separate our efforts on eliminating traditional bullying and cyber bullying. The two solutions are worlds apart, as are the mechanisms of the bullying.

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My start to blogging was a reaction to a CBC interview with Teenagers working to eliminate bullying in schools. I might suggest before continuing to read this article, that you read my initial post.

Once again, my morning drive, I enjoyed yet another CBC interview, this time with adults on the topic of bullying. To echo my thoughts in my first post, I do not feel that Adult intervention and Adult solutions are the magic bullet in elimiminating inter and extracurricular bullying.

Be it politics, economics or social systems, I continue to be in awe that we refuse to accept the new world that includes the internet. We ignore how our old methods of thinking must be adjusted to account for the immediate access to information and at the speed of light share thoughts, information and views with anyone on our earth.

Like all of the above, the issue of Bullying has been compounded with the advent of social media. Bullying within our academic system becomes exponentially more difficult to police, now that the fences of the schoolyard no longer provide a reprieve for the victims.

Personal attacks permeate through Facebook, Twitter, Texting etc 7/24. I suggest that cyber bulling can even be more vicious, as the bully need never stand face to face, or fear physical ramifications as they hide behind the distance that the internet provides.

As fundamentally different are the mechanics between schoolyard and cyber bullying, as do I think are the solutions. We will be unsuccessful in working in traditional ways to solve a technology based problem. Primarily, the responsibility (arguably) of dealing with School bullying, falls on the shoulders of the academic administrators, doling out punishment and protection as required. But who “owns” the issue of cyber bullying?

To deal with a problem that technology has created, technology must also be the solution. On a lesser scale, parents must become much more educated and aware of the mechanics of technology that allows this bullying to take place. Primarily the responsibility falls on those social network applications that make millions of dollars off of their customers.. Included in those customers are bullies and victims. I (of all people) want to make clear that it is not the responsibility of these social networking sites to monitor the content of its users. It is their responsibility to provide simple technical methods to prohibit unwanted comments, threats and the plethora of personal attacks on a victim. Most social networking applications do offer rudimentary blocking settings. But these need to be enhanced, and offer more options to the user and the user’s parents.

As with all new technical innovations, we don t know what we don’t know.. it is impossible for me to suggest a technical solution to combat bullying, but as Facebook, Twitter continue to develop new ways to share photos, offering GPS services, improving chat etc.. It should also be their responsibility to improve the ability to combat cyber bulling. These service providers should NEVER be held accountable for the user’s activity, but SHOULD be held accountable to offer tools to control who and what is being said about you personally.

We need to clearly separate our efforts on eliminating traditional bullying and cyber bullying. The two solutions are worlds apart, as are the mechanisms of the bullying. Diluting our efforts across both worlds will only minimize our efforts of eliminating the problem.

Oct 16th, 2012 - Postscript.. it seems that the internet community has risen (for right or wrong) in the case of Amanda Todd's Suicide.. A hacker group has done the work that I suggest the Social Media Companies should be doing.. Full article here.

Bullying

I occasionally have the need to jump up on my soapbox and express a few thoughts. Even worse now that my radio station of choice for my daily commutes is CBC.  (I realized that sentence has just stopped 95% of the readers of this in their tracks and they are back to look at status updates.)

For those still reading, I was enjoying an interview this morning with three high school students and their commitment to the Anti-Bullying campaign. Of course I am very happy of the overall awareness that Anti-Bullying has found in our schools.T- Shirts, Rallies, Posters, Empowered Educators, Peer Groups.. All something that is long overdue, and certainly effective. So.... I trust that any comments below are not in any way controversial.

Growing up in an environment that bullying was not even really a word, it was more of a regular school routine, and I’m sure a lot of blank looks would result from educators, administrators, and god forbid peers with the mere mention of being mentally or physically tortured during and after the school day. Lunch hours, recesses, bus waits were more a game of hide and seek from those handing about this abuse. And not going to school, or feigning illness, I bet, were more often a result of trying to avoid this abuse than it was to try to avoid a test or handing in homework. But I am sure we are all aware of these going on from K-12.

So now in the new world of Anti-Bully and the great steps being taken, what on earth is there to write about other than a congratulatory note? It struck me as they interviewed these three high school students on CBC, and my contact with people that Bullying still exists.

My observation, or interpretation of more than just this one interview.. is that a lot of the peer organizing groups are high in percentage of victims of this  situation themselves. And educators and guidance counsellors and even parents are outside of the true culture of teens. In the mind of a bully, will they stop their behaviour towards a victim, because a teacher does not condone it? Will they stop because a group of their victims protest? I am sure the teenage mentality has not changed THAT much since I was in school. I reiterate – these programs are all critical, and proving to be somewhat effective.

A complete vanishing of Bullying.. Never I am sure.. the world remains full of insecure, low IQ, self worthless teens that can only find acceptance by being a bully.. so possibly addressing these mental deficiencies within them will find some effectiveness. Finding groups of teens that have confidence, self worth, and social skills to get behind this effort I see is critical.. so who are these untapped anti-bullying resources?

Athletes, Team Athletes. Hockey, Football, Baseball, Soccer, etc.. Yeah sure, get the Jocks to fix bullying. And yes, I expect that some of these jocks may be perpetrators as well. But a commitment from coaches, and buy in from the athletes..might just begin to turn the tide that a weak minded Bully, may begin to see that an attempt to build their own self esteem by taking someone else’s, will find them self on an island.. Alienated from all peers.. it would not take to many incidences to a soft brained teen to bully, then see that it only lowers his “status” in  school pecking order.

Victims, in addition to reporting abuse to peer groups, administrators etc.. are directly supported by the Athletic Community.. I have been involved in enough team sports to KNOW that the brother/sisterhood within a athletic group is a strong tie, and to be able to direct that significant bond towards a non-athletic goal would be very successful.

Up on my soapbox here, I am not educated enough to know the stats on what percentage of kids are bullied, are out how many out of a thousand have to suffer through this. And I don’t know the number of kids that are in athletic teams.. But I can only guess that working to align a student afraid to go to school with a group of kids that have a strongly developed peer support system in place (a team is not a team without this necessary support system) seems a natural fit.

It would not take long for a bully who is abusing a teen with this large peer support group, to be brought out in the open, and publicly be put under scrutiny of a significant group of peers. I doubt the bully would find much personal reward in this alienation. And maybe find this further blow to their already weak minds, not worth it, and prefer not to bully any further.