With school starting in a few days, Iowa’s Attorney General is addressing what he says is a growing problem with cyberbullying. There’s where someone uses technology for deliberate, repeated and hostile behavior intended to harm. Speaking in Mason City, Tom Miller says parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing when they’re online.
He says they talk to parents about how important it is that they have a relationship with their kids, so the child will turn to them if something troubling is happening through the Internet. Miller says teachers and school officials can be a big help in identifying victims of cyberbullying.
He says it’s important that people in the schools watch for kids who are upset, calling this a “remarkably different world” from when he was in school.
Miller says there are many different ways cyberbullying can happen. He says the troubles can crop up through Facebook and other social networking websites as well as texting or other new technologies.
Miller says this week, the message board host Topix-dot-com agreed to change its abusive post policies after he and other attorneys general expressed concerns about those policies, particularly how abusive posts can impact children.
By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City