...and to be oneself is something every young person deserves, President Obama said this week, when he spoke of his sadness over the suicides of gay youth. "We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is a rite of passage, some inevitable part of growing up. It's not. We have the job of ensuring our schools are safe for all of our kids." Ensuring that every child not only has that freedom but is … [Read more...] about The freedom to *not* fit in
Search Results for: bullying
Europe’s update of the youth online risk picture
A new study of online risks to youth in 23 European countries found that "the Internet is now central to children’s lives across Europe, and they use it for a range of things which are often beneficial including schoolwork, playing games, watching video and instant messaging," reported lead author Sonia Livingstone at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The EU Kids Online … [Read more...] about Europe’s update of the youth online risk picture
From real emails to fake profiles on Facebook
This is a heads-up for parents and kids wanting to avoid a cyberbullying trick. First, if kids have multiple email accounts (and many do), they do not want other kids to know any email addresses besides the one they used to sign up for Facebook. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch created an account at Facebook impersonating Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. He said he was sorry in the first sentence … [Read more...] about From real emails to fake profiles on Facebook
Fixing hate online and offline: Everyone’s needed!
Two national news stories this week – one about anti-gay cruelty that ended in a young man's suicide in New Jersey on September 22 (see the New York Times) and the other about anti-gay hate speech from an assistant attorney general in Michigan (see this CNN blog) – indicate a serious need for family discussions about hate speech and bullying, how they are hurtful and destructive to everyone … [Read more...] about Fixing hate online and offline: Everyone’s needed!
Social location-sharing
More and more we're hearing about location-based socializing in the news – for example, Loopt and Latitude for keeping track of friends in a geographical sort of way, Facebook's new Places, the more game-like Foursquare, and Glympse for tracking kids for specific periods of time (like between 9pm and "curfew," up to 4 hours max). Well, in case you'd like a little primer on these location-based … [Read more...] about Social location-sharing