Topic : 01/08 Cyber Bullies

Bullying is everywhere. Jokes in bad taste are everywhere. We can not control what everyone else does or says, only what we say and how we react to it. Parents need to wake up, start parenting and set boundaries when kids are little, not waiting till things get out of control. The majority of homes, school's, libraries, friends homes or even relatives homes have internet access and children have access to all of these. It is us, as parents, that have to set the boundaries and limitations on it's use. Learn what your children are doing, who they are talking to and if it's not appropriate cut access to it in all places. At home, it's easy...there are programs that will block access and we can always turn it off. At school....find out your school system's internet policies, make sure they are up to par with blocking programs and that they have to have parental consent before they can use them. If your school doesn't.....get involved with the school to change it's policies. At other places, just as easy..find out what your children are up to. Talk to people, go to these places and supervise, be that uncool parent and inconvience yourself to make sure your children are safe and happy. It all comes down to parents responsibility not internet sites like MySpace.

You want to talk about bullying......my 17 yr. old daughter (senior in HS) is 4' 7" on a good day, stopped growing 3 years ago and has been extremely short her whole life. Can you say prime target for teasing and bullying? Not only have kids done it, but so have adults. She has never let her heighth (or anything else) stop her from doing what she wanted. She played all sorts of sports, like basketball, soccer, cheerleading (some competitively, others through the school or local organizations). She is in the MCJROTC program at her HS and on thier PT (physical training) team and thier unarmed drill team. She writes for the school newspaper and the local newspaper. She is a published poet and has won poetry contests and essay contests. She is a member of NHS and BPS. She is a member and officer in SADD and Key club. All this while carrying a 3.9 GPA (unweighted). She is a very accomplished young woman. All while being bullied and teased. She has learned how to deal with it, not let it stop her or kill her self-esteem. What did I do to raise such a well rounded individual? I opened my eyes and looked around. I became that uncool parent that set those boundaries. I got involved in my school system and my child's life. I became a parent and a role model. Is it easy? Now...yes.........then, it was very hard. I had to give up alot. Was it worth it? Most Definitely!! Life's not fair (whoever said it was?).  We cannot control what others do or say, but we can control how we react to them. We can turn off those TV sets and those computers. When someone says something bad to us, we can turn and walk away and choose not to listen to them. Bad things happen, but we can choose to move on. Life is about choices......don't let them take away my freedom to choose. Wake Up America!!

PS. I also have a 12 yr. old son who is just as wonderful and accomplished as his sister and he's 5' 8" and still growing like a weed.......Go Figure?

Parents must reach out to legislators and say just like we are responsible for our children's actions, there privacy is under our control. Parents let this happen, when they did not stand up and say, when Planned Parenting was allowed to give children abortions without parental consent and school nurses are allowed to give child birth control without parental consent.

Microsoft, My Space, AOL, etc. are mostly concerned about their profits. Well, minors can not enter into  contracts, and as parents you have the right to shut down the access and have the accounts closed. If these sites were forced to follow the laws that are already in place to protect minors the problem would be solved.

If you ever suspect that our child is in contact with an adult on the Internet, you can contact the FBI and they can take over control of the computer and set up traps.

I have been playing on xbox live for almost a year. I have received many threats, names callings from guys all because they get mad that I beat them. To be honest I have threaten them. I file a complaint and let Microsoft deal with it. There is no way they can google your (gamer tag) screen name on their. I honestly think this guy just wants tv time, cause you can ask anyone on xbox live this they've all been threaten by somebody on xbox live. I should know though because I we have 6 xbox live accounts on 5 different xboxs.

Ok I’m just going to talk about the online threats as a whole then move onto the video games.  

Online threats are meaningless. You give them power, not the person making the statement. If I say, “Dr. Phil is an inbreed Texas idiot” do you really think he will be offended? No, he probably wont because a smart person knows that words are just strung together to make sentences and each word has a definition. It is us as people who give the words power. Parents these days are raising kids to listen to everything they are told as facts and to not offend anyone. That is total bs. Look at the world. We got this far with all of it happening, but now we aren’t allowed to do it because we might hurt someone’s feelings… please. I don’t approve of things like burning a cross in front a black guy’s house, but saying someone is black is anther story. I’ve known people who get strongly offended by calling them black. We are living in a nation of collective ignorance. Hark! That is what Benjamin Franklin and the other forefathers basically feared would bring down this nation… just look at us as a nation. Losing freedoms left and right, trying to be perfect, protesting things we don’t know a thing about, standing up against the wrong person, etc, etc. People are just too lazy now days to look for the proof. It is either spooned fed to them or they won’t eat. Why don’t we just tell our kids, people will offend you, but just remember you live I in a place where you can be offended. People in Africa don’t exactly have a lot of right to complain that they were insulted because they can be executed for it. So just be happy you can be offended and offend. Almost everyone is offended by something and that being said let everyone who has said something that offended someone, be killed. Hark! We would all be dead right now. 

As for the video game thing of online bullying and nudist running around like spastic monkeys. The guy on the show needs to realize he is being teased by 12 year olds who are trying to be cool from all that crap in rap music and on MTV. They think because they see it there it must be how to act cool and tough. Well they’re wrong. They get over it in about 4 years. He can get over himself. Besides that what are they going to do the kids who offended him raciest verbiage? Turn off his X-box live account? Wow all he has to do is go get anther! Block his IP you could, but what if they have a brother that can route the connection through offshore sites to play? He could still get on. So really just learn that there is like maybe 30 cases a year of real life issues like that coming up and normally they are between two idiots who know one anther and just really hate one anther already. Get a life and insult them back or how about you block all messages from people who aren’t on your friends list? Also don’t post so much personal information about yourself on the intarwebs.  It opens your life up to many people. Just say your name is Frank is and you live in Florida. They will be none the wiser.  

If in any given situation, MySpace gaming or whatever, a problem or problems arise such as the ones discussed on the show, why continue to participate in these activities? Why not just shut it down and move on? To me, it's similiar to allowing a rabid dog into your home and then complaining because he bit you.