Facebook Stands Up to Bullying, if little and late

From NPR: "Facebook Takes On Cyberbullies As More Teens Leave Site"by EMILY SINER
November 07, 2013

A taste:
"The social networking site with 1.2 billion users worldwide released a "bullying prevention hub" this week. It's essentially an online resource center with suggestions for teens, parents and educators on how to address bullying — both online and off — and take action on Facebook.

The site is also beginning to roll out more options for teens to report when posts are making them uncomfortable."

Read more by clicking the title's link above.

It's nice to see that Facebook is stepping up their efforts to help address cyberbullying. I hope it pans out to be more than lip service and actually useful and effective. 

Parenting & Discipline Strategies for Emotionally Healthy Children

Some helpful Do's & Don't's and Parenting Strategies from my colleague Zach Rawlings. 

"Remember that by understanding your child’s threshold for stress and connecting with them in meaningful ways will have a positive effect on their development. Don’t shy away from being vulnerable with your child and always look for ways to incorporate more affirmation into your discipline tactics. Stay away from threats and look for the most opportune times to teach life lessons to your children. If you’re struggling to control your own emotional reactions, seek out someone to help you model more appropriate responses. Children learn what is modeled for them, so a parent’s emotional health is crucial. Above all, take a deep breath, know that kids are resilient, and understand that it is never too late to make parenting changes to help your kids grow into strong and confident adults."

Read more here. 

Raise Healthy Cyber Citizens: Partner With Your Child

There's no reasonable expectation that parents will monitor all online activities of their children. (Adults have a hard enough time monitoring, and limiting, their own online activities.) At the same time, untethered freedom of online activities can easily expose children to online bullying, elicit material and even sites that promote self-injury and suicide as reasonable solutions to emotional distress. It appears that general online use alone can have negative effects on emotional well-being.

In this Shots Health News post from NPR, they briefly look at research that indicates online activity may contribute to self-injury and suicide risks. In their research published recently, The Power of the Web: A Systematic Review of Studies of the Influence of the Internet on Self-Harm and Suicide in Young People, researchers noted the internet "is most commonly used for constructive reasons such as seeking support and coping strategies, but may exert a negative influence, normalising self-harm and potentially discouraging disclosure or professional help-seeking." Further, their results indicate "both cyber-bullying and general internet use have been found to correlate with increased risk of self-harm, suicidal ideation, and depression. Correlations have also been found between internet exposure and violent methods of self-harm."

If our children are seeking solutions to their emotional distress online, it's a good indicator that it's time to step up our involvement. If your children aren't coming to you for emotional support anymore, maybe they aren't even acting out in front of you but keeping it all in, it's time to investigate. And by investigate, I don't mean snoop (I'm a proponent of appropriate privacy) - I mean open a dialogue about your concerns for them. "Sweetheart, I've noticed I'm feeling disconnected from you recently and I've seen you looking sad, spending more time on your computer alone. I'm concerned and I want to support you however you need me to. I'm here for you and I love you."

Talk with your children about their emotions: you're a foreign language teacher giving them the vocabulary and the grammar of speaking Emotionese. You're also a scientist, helping them test and understand the emotional landscape around them. And you're an acting and dance instructor, showing them how to move their bodies and choose their behaviors to effectively demonstrate their emotions, to help them build character, impulse control, personal expression, practicing boundaries. One of the best ways to achieve these goals is by modeling and demonstrating, reviewing and repeating.

Online, this can be achieved with slightly different means. Partnering with a child early on as they learn about navigating the web, you can teach them how to communicate online, which strategies crossover to social media and which ones don't. Let them know how you choose what you read/do online  (modeling), how you choose what you steer clear of, how you use social media, even letting them know what makes you uncomfortable and what makes you feel vulnerable (judgment & impulse control). Then, you can help them start making these choices and judgments for themselves with your support and guidance. 

They'll be more likely to come to you when they feel uncomfortable or vulnerable online because they've seen you openly discuss your own experiences navigating those situations. When you make it a partnership, they'll be invested in it and more likely to share their experiences, even the tough ones with you.

Health Impacts of Bullying

Bullying can have detrimental impacts, short-term and long-term, emotional and physical. These health impacts can be suffered by children and adults, both during a bullying relationship and long after it's over. One common example we see around us is disordered eating where a bullying victim may cope with the stress by comfort eating or overly tight calorie restriction. 

Here's an informative article by Jenny Hart, re-published by my colleague Susan Heitler on Psychology Today. She discusses the many health impacts from stress, such as is felt by victims of bullying.

She covers everything from poor digestion to asthma. 

Here's a sample: 

"Being bullied also takes its toll on your immune system, which may increase your likelihood of infections, allergies, autoimmune conditions and even cancer. Periods of stress are linked to increased occurrence of upper respiratory tract infections[12]. This association may relate to the interaction between the nervous and immune systems and the fact thatwhite blood cells carry receptors for stress hormones.  "