Cyber Bullying: Protect Your Child

Recent events have raised the serious issue of cyber bullying among children and teens. CNN.com just published this article on protecting your children from online bullies and it is a must read for any parent, teen, or internet user. Here is a partial reprint of the article – you can read it on CNN in it’s original format (see link below).

(CNN) — As cyber bullying emerges as a nasty and easy supplement to traditional schoolyard taunts, a raft of online tools have come on the market to help parents prevent it or respond to it.

But experts say common sense parenting and simple awareness about the potential for trouble might be some of the most valuable tools to prevent damaging electronic harassment.

The most simple way to start? Get involved in your child’s online life. Then stay out of the way.

Michael Fertik is CEO of ReputationDefender, which offers free and paid online tools designed to monitor what’s being said about you, or your child, on the Web.

As children are first showing interest in social networking sites like Facebook, parents should ask for their passwords before giving permission, he said.

“It’s very much age-dependent,” he said. “There’s a narrow window of about two years in which most kids are willing to give their parents their passwords. Younger than that they’re not really on the social net and older than that they’re going to find a way to get it done without sharing a password.”

Posted by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo in Cyber Data Security and tagged Cyber Bullies, Cyber Bullying, Online Bullying, Sileo.