18-year old Tyler Clementi was a freshman at Rutgers University. After his high-school graduation, he announced to his family and friends that he was gay. Dharun Ravi was Clementi’s room-mate at Rutgers University. In September 2010, Ravi used a webcam to stream footage of Clementi kissing another boy. This was streamed on Twitter and Clementi learned about this incident only on Ravi’s Twitter feed. He became a joke in the campus and all his classmates started ridiculing him. On September 22 2010, Clementi jumped off the George Washington bridge and committed suicide. This is a classic case of cyber bullying where one person used electronic media to ridicule, share negative information or criticize another individual, also called as victim.

According to stopbullying.org, cyber bullying is a kind of bullying that takes place over the digital media and includes bullying done through SMS, apps, online games and social media. In this context, bullying includes sending, sharing or posting any negative, harmful, private or mean content about another individual with an intent to cause embarrassment or humiliation. Broadly speaking, cyber bullying happens on: * Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Whatsapp and Snapchat * Text message sent through phone devices * Instant messaging apps * Emails

The bully can be a person known to the victim or a perfect stranger. Regardless of who the bully is, the victim gets traumatized and goes through emotional problems like anxiety and depression. Many teenagers, like Tyler Clementi, even go to the extent of committing suicide.

What makes cyber bullying so compelling and unique?

Cyber bullying is probably the worst form of bullying because it has a lasting impact on the victims. The very nature of digital media is conducive for such a heinous act both from known contacts and strangers. Specifically, these are some of the unique concerns of cyber bullying. * Continuous - Digital media is open 24X7, which means, it can be difficult for children to get relief from the bully as well as the incident. * Permanent - All content posted on the digital media is permanent and can be viewed by anyone, unless it is reported to the concerned authorities and removed. Such negative information about an individual can adversely impact college admissions, job opportunities and social life. * Not apparent - Since cyber bullying happens online, it’s difficult for parents and teachers to hear or recognize it. As a result, adults don’t get to hear about many cyber bullying cases until it’s too late. These unique aspects make cyber bullying a truly dangerous problem in today’s digital world. And this brings us to the next question.

How can parents help?

First off, cyber bullying is more common than what we want to believe as parents. Some studies show that as much as 24% of teens have been the victims of cyber bullying in one form or another. To know if your child has been a bully or a victim, you’ll have to closely observe the online and sometimes even offline habits of your teen.

How to know if my child is a victim or a bully?

If your teen has been a victim, he or she might not tell you right away. You’ll have to look for patterns to know that something is wrong. In general, look for online activity patterns. If there’s a drastic increase or decrease in social media messages or even texting, it can indicate a problem. Look at how your teen behaves after getting off the phone. Do they look sad? Do they cry or go to their room/bathroom? These are all indications that your child is getting bullied online. In some cases, your teen may want to close his or her social media account too. If that happens, you should get help.

On the other hand, if your child is a bully, you’ll see a sudden increase in the time spent online. Your teen may even try to hide the screen when you or another adult walks past because they don’t want you to know what they’re up to. Also, bullies feel happy and get a sense of satisfaction when harassing others. So, if you see your teen laughing or smiling while sending text messages, you’ll have to intervene and ask questions.

In addition, cyber bullies use multiple accounts to hide their identity. They may even create fictitious accounts to bully others. If you come across multiple identities for your teen, you’ll have to step in and have a conversation before the victim takes any drastic step.

Measures

Parents and teachers have to take a two-fold approach to tackle cyber bullying. The first step is prevention while the second one is response.

• During the first phase, work with your child to increase safety awareness on the Internet, so the chances for getting bullied is greatly reduced. To do that, talk to your children about the importance of being safe online and what they can do to use the Internet responsibly. Encourage them to keep their personal information private and to refrain from interacting with strangers. Teens should accept friend request only from people whom they know.
• During the second phase, record all evidence. More importantly, never scream, punish or point fingers at your teen. They’re already feeling low and miserable, so avoid making them feel worse. Take all your evidence to the concerned authorities and report the issue. On the other hand, if your child is a bully, prevent it from happening right away. Talk, punish (taking away privileges could be an option) or do whatever works for your teen, but impress upon your teen that this practice should be stopped right away. Once the bullying stops, talk to your teen and figure out what led them to bully n the first place. It can be frustrations at home, school or sometimes, the child could have been a victim of bullying and this could have been the outlet for letting out all that frustration.

Understand the underlying cause and help your teen to get over it. Take counseling help, if you find it too overwhelming to handle it all by yourself.