Musings for Moms - Bullying

 I have written about bullying a few times in MFM but the problems never seem to go away... and if I have

to be honest, it seems like 2020 has brought out the absolute worst in some people.  Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of awesome people out there in the world but man oh man, there are some real pieces of work too.  Did people forget their manners during lockdown or did people just forget how to veil their true colors?

The sad fact is that social media has helped the bully with his or her bullying ways more so today than in the past.  I mean you post one little thing on social and it will spread like wildfire.  Back in the 80s and 90s when I was in school such things didn't exist.  If you wanted to bully someone, you would be using a landline phone to call other people to spread the rumors.  Sometimes those phones were rotary dials too... they were the worst.  Sure there were bullies in schools and whatnot, but it didn't seem as bad back then.

I digress... 

So is the answer keeping kids off of social media?  How do you keep say a high schooler off of social media?  YOU WILL RUIN THEIR LIFE!!!  No, that's not the answer... because they will figure out a way regardless.  Teenagers are resourceful that way.  My son has a cell phone and he has facebook, but here are the rules that went along with that... I know all the passwords and he can only friend family members. I trust my son won't do something stupid, but I just want to make sure of that and my sure no one else is doing something stupid to him. He mostly wanted to get facebook for the videos because the YouTube ones weren't enough.  

Sure the teens are sneaky today, having faux accounts or secret accounts, but if you do a few checks on their phones you will be able to see all their hidden pages.  Is it a privacy issue?  Probably, but who is paying that cell phone bill? 

I am not going to go into all the specifics of bullying we all know it isn't right and those of us that think it is ok, well chances are they are a bully themselves and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... 

Just keep an open dialog with your children, make sure they are doing ok.  If you notice something isn't right with their behavior, ask them about it.   If they won't talk to you, remind them of all the people in their life that they can talk to, not just teachers and school administration, neighbors, other family members, coaches, etc.  

For reference, here is the previous article I wrote about bullying - that list the signs if your child is being bullied or IF your child IS the bully ...  and there was this one too...