<p>Amazing irony with some of the posts in this thread.</p>
<p>I started to read about ■■■■■■; the brothers who set up the site, the number of kids on the site, and the # of suicides. Unlike FB and other sites, there are no employees who monitor the nasty remarks. </p>
<p>Ecounter, I know all about the anorexic and cutting sites. I’ve had patients who learned about cutting and purging thru these sites. We’ve gone into schools to discuss such topics. We have a county program on bullying. At monthly meetings, school principals, clergy, GCs, students, all come to speak and vent. A video was made a few years ago. As a professional and a volunteer, I wish I knew what more to do.</p>
<p>The mom in Lakeland monitored her DD’s online activity, got her professional help, yet still ended in tragedy. so sad.</p>
<p>There must be something going on that I am completely missing. I have reread Ecouter11’s posts and see nothing objectionable in them. Is there some background that we know nothing about? </p>
<p>I wish people having a bad day would find a better way to deal with it than lashing out to strangers. Some of us have slightly thicker skins and you’re not going to scare us off, but others will cease to post here if this keeps up and that would be a shame. Everybody should be able to contribute here as long as they are polite. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean these aren’t real people you’re being mean to.</p>
<p>D had to deal with mean girls in 4,5 grades. It was incredibly painful to watch and we kept a very close eye on the situation. We made sure Dhad good friends and lots of activities without these girls. </p>
<p>The parents of the mean girls were in total denial. They couldn’t see the cruelty of their daughters’ actions. A couple of parents used the phrase, “going through a stage”. Even now, I would bet the parents would not admit the behavior although at least two girls have said they behaved miserably toward D.</p>
<p>The parents of the mean girls were in total denial</p>
<p>Very true…that’s why we see so many more posts from parents telling their stories about “mean girls,” but we rarely ever see posts from parents saying that their own child is the “mean girl”.</p>
<p>When my kids were in middle school, we had a big uproar because the “cool girls” (gag) had formed a “5 foot club” which meant that they would always be at least 5 feet away from anyone who wasn’t “cool”. Ugh. They wouldn’t allow anyone who wasn’t “cool” to sit near them or talk to them or anything. They’d pass mean notes in class, and even had some notebook filled with hateful things. The “passed notes” sometimes were a chain of notes with each “cool girl” adding her own mean words about some particular girl.</p>
<p>The teachers wouldn’t believe that these darlngs were doing anything wrong. Finally, two of their victims (my friend’s D) got ahold of two of these notes and the mean girls names were there to see under each of their “mean words”. </p>
<p>When the victims went to a teacher, the teacher took one of the notes and ripped it up…because she didn’t like being proved that she was wrong. the other girl quickly hid the other note in her shirt to prevent the teacher from destroying that note. She refused to hand over the note when the teacher demanded (good for her!) My friend’s D was staying at my home during that time while the parents were out of town. I took that note, made lots of copies, took them to the principal, our pastor (this was a church school), etc. </p>
<p>Needless to say, the “S” hit the fan. The pastor was appalled and called a parent meeting. The parents of these “mean girls” had to face the music. Their darlings weren’t the darlings that they imagined. Sadly, a few of the parents behaved horribly at the news. Some were “stand up” folks who then did the right thing. But, some were petty and made silly excuses. It was an ugly time. </p>
<p>What some of those “mean girl parents” didn’t realize is that they fostered a lot of this behavior. The moms of those girls were in a “clique” so to speak. They hung out together, played Bunco together, and they gossipped together. A couple of them were extremely jealous of the families of the targetted victims (better jobs, homes, cars, etc). Not surprising that their DD’s picked up on some of their traits and took them to an extreme.</p>
<p>When my children were younger (late middle school, high school) I set what I believed to be very strict guidelines for social media usage. I was evidently the last parent in the world to allow facebook and cell phones. D was responsible, S was not and there were some very challenging times in our house. I learned a lot and even now am very leery of most social media sites as an adult. </p>
<p>I think at times I forget that not every child is going to have the same level of supervision and guidance that I tried to provide my children with (and my S still got in trouble). I feel very sad for parents of these children. All you can do is the best you can. That said, the internet has opened up the whole world; a child who is lonely and bullied at school may reach out for connections/community on the internet and find even more of the same. As a parent I don’t know how you can keep up with it all.</p>
<p>I didn’t have ■■■■■■ in high school but we had the precursor (the name is escaping me right now… honesty box or something). I had one for about a day and it was disgusting. I got rid of it. I didn’t realize it was still going on. I wish more young people were empowered to just cut out negative technology. UGH!</p>
<p>FWIW, growing up in the social media age (MySpace became big when I was in middle school, Facebook in high school, etc) my parents dealt with it by keeping me really, really, really busy. I was ALWAYS out doing something IRL and had very little time for that social media crap. Maybe other parents can take this route?</p>
<p>By the way, I found something really interesting. I did not immediately know what “AFAIK” meant (sorry, I’m old 
)so I was going to copy and paste it into google but when I put the cursor on it, it explained it for me. This new fangled technology is wonderful.</p>
<p>Lol, 3bm. Do you use Firefox, or have other browsers started doing it, too?</p>
<p>Chrome today. I use various depending on which computer I’m on.</p>
<p>P.S. It does not do it for “FWIW”. Luckily I knew that one.</p>
<p>I think I’ve told this story before, but I was bullied really bad in middle school. I was the only non-Catholic in a Catholic school and not only were the kids terrible, but the parents were mean to my parents, the teachers and Priest treated us like second class citizens, and it was just overall awful. I had a MySpace and got some cyberbullying but I disabled my account until I left that wretched place. </p>
<p>I had such a close relationship with my parents that they were able to help me through it and eventually pulled me from the school. Even they didn’t know how bad it really was though. When we went to school officials, they basically blamed me. The idiots believed the rumors that I was promiscuous (in MIDDLE SCHOOL) and was basically bringing it on myself. Despite the fact that I was probably the most straight-laced one out of the group, but being a scholarship kid, a non-Catholic, and just generally an odd ball left me an easy target.</p>
<p>IMO, not much has improved in nearly a decade. I think we are very much a blame-the-victim society “Why didn’t she just log off?” “Why didn’t she just walk away?” rather than admitting that bullies run pretty much every level of, well, everything. Just think about the HBS thread we had recently and how many people just brushed it off as “the culture” and said people should just get thicker skin. We, as a society, excuse the behavior until it’s too late. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the solution is.</p>
<p>One of the sad parts of this bullying behavior seems (to me) to involve the desire to be “the most attractive” to boys. these bully girls are often pre-occupied with boys, and have a deep-down fear that “other girls” might be deemed more attractive. </p>
<p>Yes, I know that these mean girls are also cruel to girls who might not be considered to be “cute,” but they really go for the jugular if they’re worried that Cuter Susie may catch the eye of the guys that they’re interested in. </p>
<p>My friend’s D, a natural beauty, was also very popular with boys. That annoyed the heck out of that Five Foot Club…so she was a huge target. The other girl, a new girl, was targetted because she had this beautiful lots of body long blonde hair.</p>
<p>I was one of the ones bullied. At least today, people are recognizing this behavior for what it is and are at least trying to punish the offenders instead of blaming the victims. In my day, the behavior was either ignored (“You’re imagining things!”) or the victim was blamed (“What did you do to them?”) And I wish people would do more to recognize the role of adults in this! In my experience, some teachers can bully more than kids ever thought of doing. These types don’t stop pulling the wings off flies as they grow older, they just think of better reasons for doing so.</p>
<p>^^^
That is very true, mom2collegekids. D was shunned in middle school and hs by the queen bee of a group of not so beautiful girls because her boyfriend had a crush on D. She didn’t experience anything like what you describe, but she had many lonely weekends.</p>
<p>football, I’m saying that it’s really NOT that different now in way too many places. I still got those same things said to me only a few years ago and the schools I’ve worked in over the last few years say the same things to their students.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids,
That’s exactly what happened to my daughter. She was (okay, still is) very good looking in elementary school. Girls were jealous and started bullying. The irony is the boys offered D refuge from the girls, so by middle school while the it girls were clustered together eyeing the boys from a distance, D was sitting with said boys. By that time, D was one of the guys and could enjoy their company without worrying if they thought she was cute or whatever.</p>
<p>Needless to say, this did not improve relations between the girls and D.</p>
<p>mom2ck, I was bullied in middle school and trust me, I was a threat to NO beautiful girl. I was tall and painfully skinny, smart (ammo for the bullies), glasses and frizzy hair, socially awkward, fashion-impaired, pretty much the school geek. </p>
<p>Let’s just be clear that bullies can have lots of different reasons for bullying someone, from “too beautiful” to “too ugly” to “too anything.” Like domestic abuse, bullying isn’t caused by the victim. It’s caused by the bully’s insecurities and need to elevate themselves by putting someone else down.</p>
<p>I really don’t recall anyone being bullied in my school experience. We had beautiful kids as well as socially awkward or the less classically attractive. Those kids may have felt the sting of not being included in things; in fact I’m sure that happened. But vicious, overt bullying like we are hearing about today, I never witnessed. I do acknowledge maybe it happened and I just didn’t see it. But I have to wonder if the “distance” provided by computers and smart phones may be the reason why it seems to be becoming a social epidemic. It’s probably a lot easier to be mean on the internet than to torture someone to their face.</p>
<p>My D’s school sent home an email last year that ■■■■■■ was blocked at school and asked parents to block it at home. Why kids gravitate to sites like it is beyond me, but they do. I spend a lot of time in the car with my 13yo D. While we do talk a lot, she also spends time doing HW, reading, listening to music and texting. Can I monitor who she texts and what is being said? Not easily without telling her she isn’t allowed to do it it. Unfortunately, that is the form of communication teens use nowadays. In my day it was the landline in the kitchen. Times change. Keep the lines of communication open and monitor your kids online activity. Your nice kid could be the victim or the bully. I have told my D I am allowed to pick up her phone and laptop anytime, any day and review what she is doing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We told our kids the same thing. One day we did. “Hand over your phone.” I went through her texts and boy did I get a brainful of stuff I never wanted to see. Not bullying, but other things. Poor D went and laid face down on the couch, knowing how busted she was going to be. </p>
<p>This incident lead to a whole lot of learning for all of us and opened up many important dialogues about all kinds of things. Maybe in this instance the technology worked in our favor vs. when I was growing up and so much remained “secret” from our parents.</p>