Traditionally, bullying has been a face-to-face ordeal, often involving a kid or teen being emotionally or physically cruel to another. But now, thanks to advances in technology, bullies can attack their victims in cyberspace, through things like emails, texts and posts on social media sites.
Who is Affected?
According to an article on StopBullying.gov, statistics from 2008-2009 show that 6 percent of students in grades 6 through 12 experienced cyberbullying. A 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey found that 16 percent of high-school students were bullied electronically within the last year. As the article points out, although research on this topic is becoming more prevalent, it can be hard to accurately assess how common this problem is, in part because technology is changing so rapidly.
There is no doubt about it setting curfews and having your teenager stick to them is one of the most stressful parenting challenges. I think we make it so difficult for ourselves sometimes as parents by thinking what we should do rather than what we want to do. I believe to be a successful parent we need to first get clear what we want in our own family, what we want in our relationship with our teenager, not stick to some generic way of parenting that some guru tells us works ! So if you are a parent who likes to do things differently then here are my tips for creating curfews with your teens that won’t mean you are shouting at them all the time.
Your 12-year-old son plugs a pair of white ear buds into his ears, falls back onto the couch and starts scribbling away on his iPad. Your 15-year-old daughter is around the corner walking like a zombie around the house, with her head down, fully absorbed in text-message-wonderland. Your wife is, well….You’re not actually sure where your wife is because you’re too busy trying to fix the remote for the HD plasma TV you just bought. At this point, you have to wonder what the function of your home and family is, aside from providing food and shelter.
