“Busting parents won’t stop cyberbullies, experts say”

Busting parents won’t stop cyberbullies, experts say is from NBC News.

Here’s an excerpt I particularly liked:

Tragedies like Sedwick’s suicide can spark the hunt for a scapegoat, but prosecuting parents isn’t the solution, says Sameer Hinduja, a criminal justice professor at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. “Legislators and politicians jump in and say we’ve got to pass laws, have stronger sanctions. But when you think it through and ask what’s going to deter someone from messing up the same way again, (prosecuting the parents) is not the best way to respond. “

Legal sanctions imposed on parents could pit the child against the parents, Hinduja added. “The child will be in trouble even further, perhaps for getting the parent into trouble,” he said.

Even the most well-intentioned parents cannot police their kids’ social-networking habits around the clock, said Tina Meier, whose 13-year-old daughter Megan committed suicide in 2006 after allegedly being hoaxed and bullied on the social network MySpace by Lori Drew, the mother of one of Megan’s former friends. Drew was found guilty by a federal jury of three computer-crime misdemeanors. In 2009, a federal judge vacated the conviction.

“Is it important for us to hold parents accountable for their children’s actions?” Meier asked. “Yes. But it’s impossible for parents to be there 24 hours a day.”

There are many parents “who truly simply don’t know about it, or who are really trying (to monitor their children’s computer use),” Meier told NBC News.

Casey M., a 17-year-old Internet safety advocate from New Rochelle, N.Y., feels indicting parents for their kids’ online bullying acts will have “an inverse effect” and increase online tormenting. Casey M. is part of the national Teen Angels campaign, which speaks to parents and teenagers about Internet safety and cyberbullying. Group members don’t use their last names when speaking with the media.

“The more that parents try to control what their kids are doing online, the more sneaky kids get, and the less parents know what their kids are doing online,” Casey M. said, adding that she’s never faced serious cyberbullying. “The kids would try to hide things a little more.”

Yes, parents need support and encouragement to monitor and teach their children. I just get very uncomfortable with the emphasis on punishing parents. I’ve previously posted about a number of instances where public officials seem to want to use that as their main strategy to encourage parent involvement — it’s certainly easier than the slow process of building relationships, spending time on encouragement, and leading with our ears instead of our mouths….

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