We came across a nicely done blog by Brickhouse Security and some suggestions on how  to prevent your child from being bullied or bullying other children, “She Knows Parenting”‘s Michelle Maffei outlines four simple tips to follow:

1. Monitor your child’s digital activities: Seeing as cyber bullying takes place in the digital realm, it is important to be aware of how your child interacts with others on the web and via cell phone or text messaging. However, with such technology, it is easy for a child to keep their online activities private from their parents.

“Parents know they have a huge blind spot when it comes to what teens are doing on their phones and PCs,” says BrickHouse CEO, Todd Morris.

Some tips to make it harder for kids to hide their online activities from parents are to keep the computer in a public space such as the living room, so that if the child is engaged in cyber bullying or is being bullied, it will be much easier for parents to notice. With portable digital devices like laptops, tablets, or smartphones, this monitoring might not be possible. In this case there are such devices that can be installed on a cellphone or computer that will allow parents to keep tabs on their child’s digital activities wherever they might be.

2. Check up on their social networking profiles: With the majority of today’s children being active on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, getting an inside look at your child’s digital life might be as simple as visiting their personal pages a couple of times a week. Using this approach, parents can quickly tell how their child interacts with others, and whether they are being bullied or are bullying other children.

3. Monitor their e-mail accounts: Another approach recommended by Maffei is to periodically check up on your child’s e-mail account to make sure everything is going well and that they are not getting involved with any dangerous or inappropriate online activities. The options that you have with your child is to be upfront and require your child to share their passwords with you, or to look into programs that secretly record your child’s computer activities.

4. Take other parent’s bullying concerns seriously: Lastly, whenever another child’s parent contacts you about bullying, whether your child is the victim or the aggressor,  take the time to do some investigating. Even if you think your child isn’t the type to be involved in such activities, it is a good idea to look into the matter and talk to your child to see if there are any problems that they might have.

If you do find that your child is involved with cyber bullying, it is important to sit them down and have a good talk. Find out why the situation is happening, how to address it, and what your child can do to either resolve the problem or find an alternative way to express themselves.

According to a national survey of American attitudes on substance abuse, “time spent social networking increases the risk of teens smoking, drinking and using drugs.” On a typical day, 70% of teens ages 12 to 17 – 17 million teenagers spend from a minute to hours on Facebook, Myspace and other social networking sites, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (Casa) at Columbia University.

“For this same age bracket, social network savvy teens are five times more likely to use tobacco; three times more likely to use alcohol; and twice as likely to use marijuana than teens who do not spend any of their day on social networking sites.” Check out a past blog of ours Drug Use Continues to Rise, How Can You Protect Your Kids? and see what some of the signs are.

Parental controls and computer monitoring software like WebWatcher and WebWatcher Mobile make it possible for parents to track their child’s activity both on their PCs and on their Smartphones to prevent some of these kinds of conversations from going beyond the PC.

Below are some tips from GovInfoSecurity blog  that points out some very important safety steps to adhere to across all age groups. Social media sites a great place to connect with friends, but it is also important to remember that adhering to an internet safety policy must play a significant role in the way we connect here.

A Guide to Facebook Security can be very useful for parents who want to make sure that their child is friending safely. Check out this very helpful Parental Controls Guide to help better secure your child’s Facebook profile. Monitoring software like WebWatcher on your child’s PC or WebWatcher Mobile on their BlackBerry or Android devices will help to ensure that they’re fully abiding by the Internet safety measures you’ve put in place.

Here are 16 tips the authors present to stay safe on Facebook:

1. Only friend people you know.
2. Create a good password and use it only for Facebook.
3. Don’t share your password.
4. Change your password on a regular basis.
5. Share your personal information only with people and companies that need it.
6. Log into Facebook only once each session. If it looks like Facebook is asking you to log in a second time, skip the links and directly type www.facebook.com into your browser address bar.
7. Use a one-time password when using someone else’s computer.
8. Log out of Facebook after using someone else’s computer.
9. Use secure browsing whenever possible.
10. Only download apps from sites you trust.
11. Keep your anti-virus software updated.
12. Keep your browser and other applications up to date.
13. Don’t paste script (computer code) in your browser address bar.
14. Use browser add-ons like Web of Trust and Firefox’s NoScript to keep your account from being hijacked.
15. Beware of “goofy” posts from anyone, even friends. If it looks like something your friend wouldn’t post, don’t click on it.
16. Scammers might hack your friends’ accounts and send links from their accounts. Beware of enticing links coming from your friend

New Jersey’s anti-bullying law is paving the way for a proper response to taking cyberbullying seriously. This state as well as many other states has raised the bar on how to appropriately handle this harmful and aggressive behavior.

According to a recent article on the issue from www.northjersey.com “Since the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights was signed in January, several school boards throughout the state adopted new anti-bullying policies to coincide with the law, which officially went into effect on Sept. 1. Students found to be bullying could be suspended or expelled, and administrators who don’t properly investigate complaints can be held accountable under the legislation.”

What WebWatcher CEO Brad Miller interviewed on Fox 5 News as he addresses the importance of how parents should also play a role in preventing and preparing their child for handling the issues of cyberbullying as the new school year begins.