Topic : 01/08 Cyber Bullies

Dr. Phil you asked for people to voice their opinions on this so...... As for as the young girl that took her life. I'm from Missouri and first of all I want to say to the family, I'm so sorry for this tremendous loss. You have my deepest sympathy. I have a daughter also she is now eighteen. She was also made fun of at school for her weight. I found a poem that she wrote about being lonely and about people making fun of her. She got involved with sports with a tiny bit of encouragement from me in fifth grade, that helped with her confidence a little, and later when we had problems with her I took her to counseling to help her to deal with people that didn't make her feel good about her self which included her own father who is a bully, and I went to her therapist to find out what I needed to do to be a better parent for her in her situation. What I needed to be doing and stop doing. I'm not saying this for the family that has lost their daughter, so much as for the families that have problems with their children now. My daughter suffered from depression, but now is much better and not on any medication. She has learned the proper techniques how to handle her father and others like him and that makes a HUGE difference.

Perhaps there should be a class taught at schools, "Only You Allow Yourself To Take Crap From a Bully" .

My eighteen year old doesn't see how the woman that put the sight together and pretended to be someone else can be held responsible. Then she wanted to know what I thought.

I think anytime an adult impersonates someone else in order to manipulate, control, investigate (for no legitimate reason), mentally abuse and verbally abuse a child under the age of 18, that so called adult should be prosecuted.

On the other hand, I believe this girl was in a very bad place in her life. She needed help badly. Did this event push her over the edge. Yes, of course it did. But I'm sorry, I'm wondering if something later on would of triggered this. Bullys are going to exist, they don't go away. I just had to work with a new one last week. They just keep showing up. Somehow we need to learn to deal with them.

The guy that plays games on the computer that has his family threatened. Sorry for me that was a no brainer. Maybe I'm a wimp, or maybe my daughter means a hell of a lot more to me then some stupid game on a computer. If I went into anyplace on the computer where I felt uncomfortable, it is real simple, I DON'T GO BACK!

One more thing for the woman that found it necessary to set up a web site, set up a fictitious profile, and chat to find out what a teen is saying about your daughter. Sad, just plain sad. She never grew up. What she thought she was doing by helping, was just plain nuts, I would say she needs major help with issues. I'm sorry for her kid or kids. I'm sure they are suffering too.

I'm so tired of people pushing off responsibility of what happens in this world onto everyone else. Put your hands on the desk and push yourself away from the computer. If you have kids GO BE A PARENT. I can't tell you the number of people and I'm sure many of you out there who are sitting here ignorning your kids so you can chat online and  "have a break" from your "real live". You made the choice to have them, be there, raise them.

The internet is a tool and most of you are abusing it!

Take the TVs and computers out of your children's rooms! A computer and tv is not suitable for raising your kids, that's YOUR JOB! DO IT!

Stop blaming other people. If people actually reads the TOS *terms of service* for most of the things you do online you would see almost all of you are in violation. XBOX Live says to play with people you know! If people you really know are calling you racial slurs then maybe you need better friends.

I don't think kids (anyone under the age of 18) should have access to the internet without strict monitoring. Any parent who buys a child under the age of 18 a cellphone should be slapped, HARD. Kids don't need cellphones, they need books and an education. Put away the ipods, cellphones, computers, tvs, and all the other crap that fills their lives and go do something together.

Stop telling everyone else they have to censor themselves because you don't want to take the computer or game system away from your kids. If you can't sit down and use the internet with them, they don't need to use it. If they whine and cry that you don't trust them, well maybe you haven't been doing such a bang up job as a parent to begin with.

It's all whine whine whine, not me, not my fault, everyone else should control things so much so that I always feel comfortable and to heck with everyone else and their rights.

I just don't understand why a mother would tell her daughter she is disappointed in her when people are attacking her on the internet. What happened to her support? Why would you be disappointed in her? And why was she allowed, at 13, to be on my space?

very confused

It's hard.  I've not really got the money to seek legal counsil on matters like this.  I'm young, but my health is not good and hasn't been all that good since I was quite young.  Also, these 2 people live just 1 building up from me.  I lived here (in my building) 3 years before they moved in up the road.

I'd love to move, but that's a luxury I cannot afford.

I've got no family (I left an abusive household when I was 17 and lived by my own determination only since then) and no friends in the city I'm in.  They've all left to pursue school and careers and families of their own.

They're also very clever with how they do things, never using their real names or real emails or anything.  My passwords that they hacked were difficult, long passwords that would have required a high amount of hacking knowledge to accomplish.

I do have a letter one of them sent me from a year ago about threats and the police WERE notified, but I chose not to press charges at that time.  I thought that the situation would be solved just with the police getting involved as much as they did, but neither of them really fear the police.  I regret not pressing charges and getting a restraining order, but I fear it's far too late now.

It's a mixture of not having the money or support to get the police involved, and my sheer lack of knowledge about what I can do with what little I've got.

I have no idea what to do at this point.  I feel like all I can do is continue taking their blows and standing as strong as I can. D:  And hoping I don't break.

I am the mother to a 12 year old boy and this stuff has already started.  He says he is the only kid in his class who doesn't have MSN or a my space account and I like it that way! He has, however, started playing an online game called Runescape and all his friends and cousins play.  Recently though, two boys were not getting along and started calling each other names on the game.  They also were pretending to be other people and then asking questions for example "do you like Alex" and it would be Alex writing the question.  I found out and told the school and the other parents whose boys were involved.  We were all on board about telling the boys that it needs to stop and even the principal talked to the boys about it.  It was a good lesson for my son to see that nothing can be taken as true on the internet and why parents need to limit computer time and moniter EVERYTHING your child does on the computer.  Do not allow webcams!! My son is popular, athletic, plays hockey, has girls phoning ect. but we remain strict when it comes to the computer.

my daughter was a target for cyberbullies on facebook. I talked with the police and they said they would look into for me . we know who did it and  printed off evething that was put on the site. The police came back and told me that they could not do anything but talk to the girl  who set this up and tell her not to do it anymore. the site is still up and running and  has not been shut down. I have contacted facebook numberous time to have this page shut off but not 1 reply or email even confirming my message was sent to them! i beieve that  the police should be able to do someting about this ...more than talking to the oerson responsible for it . they should be have a record on the people who are doing this and have the same ZERO tolerance as in the schools for bullying!!

Hi my name is Cheryllynn. I have experienced the online bully. Ive been called monkey, they put kkk signs up and I was playing a game of online spades. I played the wrong card and my partner just automatically started calling me names. I showed it to my husband and we were shocked at the way this person was going on and on with the foul language. I ended up cutting the game off, but it was wrong and someone needs to look out for people like that and band them from being on online games.

 I am sorry for the parents of the young girl who hung herself over her adult neighbor bullying her online.  Very sad.  I STRONGLY feel that the parents should bring law suit against this neighbor.  I understand that she is holding out for a "law", however, I feel strongly about protecting free speech (your 1st amendment).  It's a slippery slope, and legislators do not often have the ability to narrowly specify to protect people.  It's a difficult legal call.  Your government (and my government...I am Canadian) have already removed some fundamental freedoms, which should make EVERYONE's hair stand on end.  Legislating in a draconian fashion can and will lead to a "China/Russia" syndrome.   I don't think anyone wants that.   If people are worried about having law suits brought, they might think twice about bullying, and maybe parents of kids who cyber bully will take more responsibility for their kids' actions if they have to pay thru the nose due to a law suit.  As well, all parents need to talk to their kids about this subject and make sure their kids are safe and careful.  No computers in bedrooms, lock out codes etc. are important.  We live in what is becoming a dangerous world due in part to the internet.   Our kids need to be very prepared for what lies out there in cyber land.

My deepest condolences to the parents of any child who feels that they must kill themselves due to ANY kind of bullying.   What is our world coming to?  sigh....

I'm an online user/gamer. My advice is for everyone that is interested in this topic and willing to help anyway they can.. My advice to you all is to never lose hope and continue to seek out justice for what is right..

My ideas to rid the world of violence online is, to give each online person the opportunity to get rid of these Cyber Bullies themselves by having a program that can record another persons statement. And have it verified by another program, ( one that comes along with the current program you are using ) to then take the measures to prove that they have commited this abusive content and to then have them removed and marked as a Cyber Bully for future reference and then eventually banned so they learn from their mistakes. They should be treated as harshly as a cheater. There are programs that games use to find cheaters. So why can we not do the same for Cyber Bullies with abusive content?

 There are lots of things we can do to make this a better world if we took the time to do so. I hope this post sheds light on what measures can be taken. So please help make this a better world for us and the children of the future.

 

 Thank You for your time everyone and TY for bringing this to light along with all the problems that exist..bye

I wanna just say that I'm an avid Xbox 360 player, especially halo 3.  Anyone, especially a full grown man, that is going to play a game online with people all over the world.  Should not be crying about racist people saying negative things about the fact he's black.  There's obviously some kind of reason they say the things they do.  Whether there idiot racists or not, who knows.  And who really cares how much money microsoft has made from halo 3.  You have the choice online to mute any person you feel is being annoying, rude, etc...  Also if your so worried about people coming to your house and hurting you or your family, then don't put your damb personal information on the game.  Simple as that.  There's nothing anyone should fear at all when playing a harmless video game online.  You have the choice to take the remarks from people while playing, mute them, or say things back to them.  It's your choice.  Get over it.  Some people just hate you for your skin color.  It will never change.  Oh and have some thicker skin.  I know 6 year olds that handle that kinda crap better then you.