- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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Lansing's "Creating A Safe School" (CASS) program will be presenting "Cyber-bullying: Indecencies on the Internet" for parents and children alike to learn more about this phenomenon that has sprung up on the Internet. Erika Dauber, the Communications Director of the Ophelia Project that sponsors CASS programs nation-wide, will speak on how on-line bullies embarrass, humiliate, threaten and intimidate, and present suggestions for dealing with such bullying."I'm part of the generation that didn't grow up knowing about cyber-bullying, or having anything to do with the Internet," says Middle School Guidance Counselor Margaret Marcoux, who is a leader of Lansing CASS along with High School Psychologist Pennee Barresi. "As a parent I didn't have anything to do with it, so it is all really new to me." Indeed cyber-bullying is a relatively new phenomenon that is more and more a part of kids lives who participate in on-line communities.
About ten schools around the country have CASS programs, in California, Florida, Indiana and Lansing, among others. The program is developed by the Ophelia Project, which provides a consultant, pre-written programs and support. Ophelia maintains this support for the first three years, then weans the individual programs as they become self-sufficient.
These days the Internet is part of kids' daily lives. "They say that 64% of kids do have some Internet interaction daily," says Marcoux. All the roles you would find in any community are filled in on-line communities, including bullies. The effect of bullying can be magnified by the immediacy of the Internet as bullies spread rumors about others in chat rooms and via instant messages and e-mail. This can cause an innocent child to be wrongly shunned by others who are taken in by the bully's activities. This affects kid's daily behavior and can lead to depression and, in extreme cases, suicide.
| How to Protect Against Cyber-bullying *
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Lansing's CASS organization includes a task force of parents, teachers, mentors, facilitators, community members, and school principals. "They are the real stake-holders in this," says Marcoux. "We talked about how we think this is an issue and we see this kind of bullying that we're seeing out of the schools. And it transcends the schools, too. A lot of parents don't know as much about it as they should." She had heard Dauber speak on the topic at a conference, so CASS decided to bring her here.
"Erika Dauber was part of the first Ophelia team that came here to train our mentors," says Barresi. "She's been here before, and some of the mentors know her. So it will be fun to have her back." Dauber was a psychology major at Penn. State, and has worked for the Ophelia Project since graduating. The organization is involved in preventing relational aggression, and her on-line expertise is a natural extension of that. While at Penn. State she worked with Clarise Nixon, who does the statistical research for the Ophelia Project. "She's part of this generation," says Marcoux. "As a 25 year old she knows first hand how this works."
| Signs Your Child May Be a Victim of Cyber-bullying *
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Lansing's CASS program uses High School mentors to present programs and counsel Middle School students on how social behavior affects others, and how to reduce relational aggression. "Research showed when we looked at this program, that high school kids working with middle school kids is really effective," says Marcoux. "And we hear that from the kids. They feel that they know more than we do when it comes to what is going on. It's not just another workshop, it's not just another lesson. It's kids telling their stories."
"They're closer to it," adds Barresi, "and they're still experiencing a lot of it at the High School." Marcoux says that anecdotally at least it seems to be working. "We don't always hear how the kids are taking this in, but one of the teachers heard one of the fifth grade girls say that they were working very hard at being kinder at lunch, because they saw the role play and said, 'That's us. That's exactly what we do.' They don't want to look like that, so they're trying now to include others at lunch and be kinder."
Some of the mentors have expressed concern that parents will brand all of on-line life dangerous if too much emphasis is put on bullying and negative aspects of the experience. One told Marcoux, "This is our life, so I hope you won't be too hard on it. This is how we communicate now. you used the telephone, we use this." But Barresi and Marcoux say that the purpose is not to condemn on-line community, but to give parents and students the tools to participate in it safely. "It's giving people a common language," Barresi says. "It allows people to talk about it more, because they're able to label it."
"I think it's greats that kids have IM, that they still keep in touch with kids that have graduated," says Barresi. "It's a great way for them to communicate." Marcoux says, "We don't have to put a negative spin on it. We just want parents to know what it is about." The program is free and open to the public at 7:00pm on Tuesday, April 11 in the Lansing Middle School auditorium.
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* from Erika Dauber's presentation on Cyber-bullying
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