Busy Mama's Guide to Cyberbullying

Bullying has been a problem in schools for years. These days, children face the growing threat of cyberbullying.

What is Cyberbullying?

The basic definition is kids “being mean to each other online,” says Nancy Willard, Internet safety expert and author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly and Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress.

It can take many forms: sending threatening or ridiculing messages to or about someone through instant messages, text messages, social networking sites, or emails; setting up polls on social networking sites that invite abusive remarks; impersonating someone online; stealing online passwords; forwarding or posting derogatory material; and other behaviors.

Someone uses a camera phone to take a picture of a classmate. Later, she posts it online so visitors can rate it, adding hurtful comments as they do. Or friends post comments on each other’s MySpace pages about something embarrassing their victim allegedly said or did. Now any Internet user anywhere can share in the gossip.

Most cyberbullying takes place on social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, hi5, and orkut. If your children have social networking site accounts, they’re probably running into it.

What Can Parents Do?

“Open the communication lines,” says Willard. Ask, “‘How’s it going with your online friends? I saw an article about cyberbullying in _____. Has anything like that happened to you?’

“[Make] sure they’re not posting things that can be used against them. Observe how real life relationships are going— they can be an indicator of what’s also happening online.”

Kids who are ten years old and younger don’t have the ability to make good choices online, so parents should make sure they’re only going to safe places online. Many Internet service providers, software programs, and operating systems now include parental controls.

With kids over ten years old, Willard recommends talking about each additional online activity they’re allowed to participate in. Make rules: “’You can only add people you know. You can’t write online anything you wouldn’t want me to hear out loud. What you’re typing needs to go with our family values.’

“They should be older when they start social networking. At that point you have to be willing to talk with them about all of the risks, including sexual predators.”

An article on Wiredsafety.org translates safety rules we teach our children into rules for the technology age. For example, “Don’t take candy from strangers” turns into “Don’t open attachments from strangers.”

What If My Child’s Being Cyberbullied?

If your child is being cyberbullied, Willard recommends these steps:

1. Instruct your child to “calmly, strongly tell the person to stop.”

2. “Download what the child is sending and send it to the bully’s parent. [This] can be most effective if the child saying stop doesn’t stop it.”

3. Block the cyberbully (delete them as a friend or buddy or use the website’s blocking tool) and file a complaint with the Internet service provider, website, or cell phone company.

4. If necessary, cancel the account altogether.

Stopcyberbullying.org has additional suggestions:

“Let the school know so the guidance counselor can keep an eye out for in-school bullying and for how your child is handling things...It is crucial that you are there to provide the necessary support and love.”

There are degrees of aggression and harm in cyberbullying incidents. The parental response should match the degree of harm to their child. Pay special attention to the answers to these questions: “Is your child at risk of physical harm or assault? And how are they handling the attacks emotionally?”

Contact local law enforcement immediately if any of your child’s personal contact information has been posted online or your child has received threats. In such serious cyberbullying cases, you’ll need electronic evidence to prove what happened. Go to www.cyberbullying.info for information on saving evidence.

What if My Child Is the Cyberbully?

Children often take turns being harassed online and doing the harassing. Your child may be the aggressor or may retaliate against something that was done to them. A lot of times, kids being mean to each other don’t realize they’re behaving as cyberbullies.

Willard says kids need to be instructed that “the value of being kind to others extends online.”

Kids tend to think they have the free speech right to say whatever they want to without thinking of the harm it could cause another person. Online, kids feel like they’re anonymous and invisible. It’s easy to say and do mean things when you don’t think you’ll have to face any consequences.
To help children realize the consequences of their behaviors, have them take this quick quiz, “Are You A Cyberbully?”

Check Willard's Cyber-Savvy Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens website for resources like parent and teen information booklets and a Parent-Teen Internet Use Agreement.

Busy Mama's Guide to Baby Swimming

Your first question may be: "Why are you writing about swimming in the middle of winter?" Quick answer: My family goes swimming most often in the winter at the YMCA's indoor pool. (Our summer beach experiences are more about running along the shoreline and taking other kids' toys than swimming.)

If you can get to an indoor pool in the winter, I recommend it as a way to expend energy, teach your child a skill, and keep cabin fever at bay.

Once you're at the pool, you may wonder what to do in the water with a young child. This is where the second question comes in.

Can Babies Really Learn to Swim?

They can, according to Rob and Kathy McKay, authors of Learn to Swim and founders of the 25-year-old Lifestyle Swim School in Boca Raton, Florida. They define baby swimming as the "harmonious movement through water" that most children from the age of six months to four years can learn.

Babies and toddlers can acquire skills like holding their breath underwater, moving through the water for a few seconds on their own, and coming up for breath during a swim.

Rob McKay says babies "can swim five to six seconds by about six months if they’ve been in water regularly in a child-centered program."

Two-year-olds in such programs may be able to swim from the middle of the pool back to the side. But the main goal is for the baby to love the water.

Joy and Swim Lessons

Kids love the kind of child-centered swim lessons the McKays give.

“They get a great boost of confidence and self-esteem,” Kathy says. For babies who can't walk yet, the “sense of freedom of movement” gives them great pleasure.

Parents love them, too. Rob calls it "the most incredible experience you can have spending time" with your young children.

Laura Minna-Choe and her daughter Keala have attended the Lifestyle Swim School since Keala was seven months old. Laura tells me her favorite Keala swimming story:

"I took my goggles and went underwater to see her swimming. She had a smile and a determined look on her face. Only ten months old, swimming to her mother, eyes open. I had no idea she could do that until I experienced it."

Lifestyle Swim School teachers do five things to keep swim lessons joyful and productive:

1. Progress at the children's pace.

2. Focus on the positive aspects of enjoying the water rather than the negative idea of fearing the water.

3. Allow children to have "off" days and don't push them on those days.

4. Use gentle guiding and encouragement.
5. Make swim lessons fun using humor, patience, and communication.

Water Safety for Babies

One of the biggest hazards to young children is their parents' sense of security. They may think their children can never drown if they've had swim lessons or if they're wearing flotation devices.

"Swimsuits with flotation devices incorporated into them are not Coast Guard approved. A problem was parents would think their kids were okay in these suits, but you can never leave kids alone swimming, not even for a minute," says Laura Minna-Choe.

The bottom line according to Kathy is: "You can't consider any child drown-proof."

Parents that have been in the water with their children, helping to teach them, know exactly what they can and can’t do.

“You’re very well aware that you’re not going to leave that child in the pool, you’re going to be in hand’s reach.”

Note: The McKays address safety in their video series, book, and website. For a look at their basic guidelines, go to www.babyswimming.com/Safety.htm.

Baby-Friendly Lessons

To make sure your children are in positive, child-centered swim programs, Kathy says, "Watch the teacher in action. Are the children smiling, are they happy, are any fears being addressed appropriately? Does it look like a good preschool program? It should be the same in the water as in the land."
Rob adds, "And hopefully they are learning to swim a little bit. [You want] the middle road with fun and swimming. The Y[MCA] and Red Cross are good. My biggest complaint is when people use fear to get parents to sign up."

You may choose to teach your children yourself. In that case, Laura has a few tips.

1. Read Learn to Swim. This is her short answer to anyone wanting to teach their children to swim. The McKays' book gives guidelines for safety, preparation, and teaching toddlers, and includes lesson plans for children of different ages.

2. Use a slow, calm approach.

3. Make it into play. Use games, toys, and songs to help your children have fun and learn more quickly.

4. Always be with your child in the water.

5. Learn with other kids.

"Keala did the four days a week classes and on off-days she went to the nearby pool," Laura says. “She didn’t like it as much when it wasn’t with the other kids."

You may find that baby swim lessons teach you as much as they teach your children. Kathy sells me with a final baby swimming benefit: “It helps to increase your awareness as a parent…watching for cues, verbal and nonverbal, becoming more aware of their learning style, starting a teaching process very early in life that you can use later in life.

"And you build this amazing trust."

Busy Mama is Paring Down

The Busy Mama's Guides have been great fun for me and I hope useful for someone other than me. One of my favorite things to write, talk, and think about is living simply. I am blessed to be able to stay home raising my son and to be able to write, too. Both raising a child and writing fiction have been dreams of mine since I can remember. I want to enjoy this life by embracing simplicity and avoiding complication. To that end, I am bringing boxes of unnecessary things and clothing to Goodwill, resolving not to buy anything (else) frivolous for myself this year, and getting rid of activities.

In order to stop the cycle of creating more and more projects--and stress--for myself, I am paring down my activities to the ones that I consider essential. Taking care of and observing my son is one essential activity; writing fiction is another one. My freelance copywriting business and nonfiction writing will be ended for now. This includes Busy Mama's Guides.

I will be writing two or three more guides this week, and at the end of the week, Busy Mama's Guides will be inactive. I plan to write about the baby swimming philosophy and techniques of Rob and Kathy McKay, authors of Learn to Swim and founders of the Lifestyle Swim School, and practical ways to prevent your kids from being cyberbullied or from becoming cyberbullies from Nancy Willard, Internet safety expert and author of Cyber-safe Kids, Cyber-savvy Teens.

Until then, I'm signing off.

Sustainable Christmas

This is an email I wrote to my family today about Christmas, which will be hosted at our house this year. If a sustainable holiday sounds like a great idea to you, feel free to use any of these ideas you like. And check out No Impact Man for a yearlong project designed to leave no impact on the environment.

Hello Dearly Loved Ones,

Bear with me if I have already emailed some of these ideas, but here is my finalized version of our Christmas visit options. It will be a... Sustainable Christmas! (please hold applause until the end)

Our family wants to keep Christmas fun and stress-free while living our values of environmental and personal caring. We know many of you feel the same way. Here are some proposals for a sustainable Christmas:

1. If you want to give gifts, make them or buy them secondhand.

2. If you prefer to skip gifts, make a present of your time and self. Heck, you could even give dishwashing or cooking as a gift! ;)

3. Use alternatives to wrapping paper:
hemp paper newspaper old calendars wallpaper old craft paper strips of
construction paper instead of bows, natural decorations like pinecones

4. Think about donating stuff you don't use anymore to Goodwill or another charity before the holidays.

5. Play games and enjoy each other's company instead of watching movies. (But I love movies, so I'm sure we will be doing a little of that!)

6. Take brief showers. Hey, at the Powers house, we all have to share one bathroom anyway.

7. Have a four-hour period free of electrical devices.

Turn off:
Christmas lights and other nonessential lights
TV and DVD player
Coffeemaker and microwave
Stereo
Computers

Replace with:
Candles (and essential lights)
Games
Music-playing
Already-cooked food and cookies
Conversation

We can each do as many or as few of these things as we want to do. If you'd like to give environmentally-friendly gifts but it becomes too complicated and stressful, do what works best for you. Stress trumps everything. Do what makes you happy.

Busy Mama's Guide to Kicking the TV Addiction

Let me start by admitting that TV dependence is a problem I'm trying to address in my own life. The following post lists ideas that I'm hoping will work for me -- it's not an expert's guide at all. My focus is mainly on reducing my son's TV time but I could use a lot of help myself. Let's face it, parents who watch a lot of TV have kids who watch a lot of TV.

I'll start by drawing a comparison between TV dependence and compulsive eating (which is something I've addressed myself with a degree of success). Both TV and food sit in our homes, taunting us with their convenience and availability. Both can soothe hurt feelings or anxiety by taking our minds away from problems and into a netherworld of nothingness. Both can be consumed even when we're fatigued or sick or too cold or too hot. Neither one will ever turn us away or reject us.

These characteristics all add to the enormous power TV and food have over many people. The good news is: they're inanimate objects! If we put our minds to it, we can outsmart them. I think.

From personal experience, I know it's hard to quit or cut back on any habit without putting something in its place. And if we're going to replace the TV habit, we might as well do it with something healthy. It's got to be pleasurable, though, or we'll never use it as a replacement.

Activities to Take the Place of TV Watching:

1. Listening to music that makes you laugh or sing or dance or feel inspired.
2. Going outside (this one works every time with my son; unfortunately, it's not very tempting to older kids and adults).
3. Reading a great book or magazine.
4. Looking at old photos.
5. Journaling.
6. Drawing or scrapbooking or a different hobby that doesn't invite you to plop down in front of the TV while you're doing it.
7. Taking a hot, scented, bubbly bath.
8. Sex.
9. Anything at all that's not harmful that you love to do.

Taking Small Steps:

It's difficult for most people to make huge changes all at once and then stick to them. Some people do better going cold turkey; if you're one of them, disregard everything in the following list and just get rid of your TV altogether.

1. Cut back on the minutes of TV per day that you or your child watch. If your child's used to watching two hours a day, reduce that time by 15 minutes every day until you've reached an acceptable amount.

2. Move the TV from the living room to the bedroom to keep it out of sight during the day. Or move it from the bedroom to the living room so you don't hole up in your bedroom to watch it.

3. Decide what hours of the day are acceptable for watching TV and only watch at those times.

4. Decide which programs are acceptable to watch and only watch those shows.

Make Time for Yourself.

I think most parents have, at one time or another, put their kids in front of the TV so they could get something done for themselves. Taking a shower, cleaning house, writing, doing a self-manicure, paying bills, or resting...it ranges from hard to impossible to do these things with little children in the house.

Try these ideas instead of TV:

1. Find a friend, relative, or babysitter to take care of your children while you have Me Time.

2. Involve your child in some part of the chores or tasks you're doing. Examples: give the little one a duster while you're dusting, lay out crayons and paper when you're writing cards, let the baby sort the clothespins while you're hanging out laundry.

3. Have your children sit down in their rooms with some of their books surrounding them in a circle. Lay each of the books open to a particular page. See how long they'll explore the books.

Busy Mama Revisits Kids and TV

Thinking about my previous post on children watching TV (here), I came across some helpful articles on the Dr. Spock website:

Guidelines for Television Viewing

No TV for Children Under Age 2?

and the all-important

Video Games: Promises and Perils

I love Dr. Spock!

Busy Mama Dance Workout

Just finished a 15-minute workout in which my buddy boy and I danced to Modest Mouse and Nikka Costa. To tell the truth, I felt a little like Pulp Fiction's Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega when they danced at Jack Rabbit Slim's. I did some moves, he followed along, he performed his own trademark steps (twirling around, marching and shaking his arms vigorously), I followed along...and we had a marvelous time. Picture this: I'm in my kitchen apron, barefoot, he's in shorts and socks, and we're moving to

"Illuminate the silly things
Shed some light on all that's wrong
Everybody needs it sometimes
Sometimes the only thing you got
Is what makes you feel like
You're something else altogether...
Everybody got their something
Everybody got their something
Make you smile like an itty bitty child."

I highly recommend it.