Related News: The Problem With Teens and Instagram

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Yahoo! Parenting published an article titled The Problem With Teens and Instagram.

Fran Walfish, PsyD, a Los Angles based child psychologist and author of The Self-Aware Parent, says parents should be wary of using age as a way to measure whether their kid is ready for a social media account. “First, the child needs to demonstrate that they’re responsible by respecting curfews, following bedtimes, and family rules and values,” Walfish tells Yahoo Parenting. “One son may be ready at 12-years-old, but his brother might not be ready till he’s 16. Independence needs to be earned, not given.”

Source: Yahoo! Parenting

Related News: Anti-sexting campaign coming to Tuscaloosa County Schools

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. WSFA published an article titled Anti-sexting campaign coming to Tuscaloosa County Schools.

Tuscaloosa County law enforcement is saying sexting can have some serious consequences.

Monday night, the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) talked about sexting in the county school system with parents and their children.

Source: WSFA

Related News: Parents face defamation trial over fake Facebook page their kid made

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Parents face defamation trial over fake Facebook page their kid made.

Two parents whose teenager set up a fake Facebook page to ridicule a classmate will face a defamation trial, a Georgia appeals court ruled yesterday. Even though they didn’t create the page, the parents could be liable because they allowed it to remain up for more than a year, the court said.

In 2011, Alexandria (Alex) Boston, a middle school student in Cobb County, Georgia, shared a homeroom class with Dustin Athearn and Melissa Snodgrass. Athearn and Snodgrass created a fake Facebook page under Boston’s name. They posted pictures of her taken using a “fat face” app and wrote posts that suggested she had racist views and was a lesbian, according to a report published today in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Parents fight cyberbullying with lawsuit

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. TODAY published an article titled Parents fight cyberbullying with lawsuit.

A Texas family is trying to fight cyberbullying in court.

Reymundo and Shellie Esquivel are filing a lawsuit this week against six of their teenage daughter’s schoolmates and their parents, alleging that the students created an Instagram account aimed at humiliating her and fellow classmates.

“When we opened up the web page on Instagram, we opened up Pandora’s box,” Shellie Esquivel told TODAY’s Janet Shamlian. “There was a picture of her and all these vulgar postings of her underneath the photograph.”

Source: TODAY

Related News: BULLY-PROOF

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. The Troy Messenger published an article titled BULLY-PROOF.

Pike County residents were able to learn about the epidemic of bullying this Thursday night in Troy when the university held a town hall meeting followed by a vigil to raise bullying awareness.

The meeting took the form of a panel discussion and question-and-answer section in which Pike County residents were able to ask specific questions about bullying.

The panel was composed of Florence Mitchell, Greg Crosby, Sharon Sullivan, Brenda Lampley, Karena Valkyrie and Greg Price.

Price gave a presentation on cyber-bullying before the panel discussion. Price serves as the head of the Alabama Computer Forensics Institute, a group that aids law enforcement officials in technology related criminal cases. “We work an enormous volume of cases involving cyber-bullying and child predators,” Price said. “It is basically anywhere where technology and bad things intersect.”

Source: Troy Messenger

Related News: Are we too quick to cry ‘bully’?

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. CNN published an article titled Are we too quick to cry ‘bully’?.

Actual bullying, many educators and social scientists say, is intentional, repetitive abuse by a powerful person toward a less powerful target.

But not everyone defines it the same way: Although most states have bullying laws on the books, according to the Education Commission of the States, it’s handled differently around the country. New Hampshire’s law specifies that an act need occur only once — not multiple times — to be bullying. Nebraska’s law calls on local districts to create bullying policies. Several states recently added provisions to cover cyberbullying — bullying or harassment through technology. Laws in Massachusetts and New Jersey detail how educators should prevent, report and investigate bullying.

Say the word in almost any school these days, and it will get a quick reaction. In many cases, advocates said, that’s helpful. But sometimes, when it’s not really bullying, kids miss out on a chance to learn to cope with minor conflicts on their own.

Source: CNN