The emergence of the internet, and associated technologies like email and instant messaging, present problems for today’s parents that were unimaginable just twenty years ago. Children use computers for homework, surf the web at their leisure and socialize through instant messaging – all activities that are often outside direct parental control and by themselves leave little or no record of their occurrence.

Some parents attempt to solve the problem by banning computer use entirely or allowing it only when a parent directly supervises, but most find this is not a realistic solution and places their child at an academic and social disadvantage compared to other children. On the other hand, unfettered access to a computer with access to the internet poses real dangers to children. Consider the following:

* Computer-sex offenders almost always meet potential victims in instant message chat rooms. Chat rooms grant these predators anonymity and a belief their instant messages are not monitored or recorded.

* The average age of first exposure to pornography is over the internet is 11 years old.

* The FBI recommends you monitor your child’s access to all types of live electronic communications, including instant message and email.

* One out of five children were aggressively pushed to have face-to-face meetings with strangers in the last year, often via instant messaging.

* Because young people often find instant messaging easier than talking face to face, they often say things they wouldn’t say in person. Cyber-bullying has become a new form of harassment.

* While online predators usually gradually seduce their targets through attention, affection, kindness, and even gifts, some predators work faster than others, engaging in sexually explicit conversations immediately.

Many parents are finding an acceptable middle-ground between no supervision at all and direct personal control of their children’s computer use is to use inexpensive and readily available keylogger software. Keylogger software monitors a child’s actions on the computer and stores this information for later review by a parent. Quality varies, but keylogger software is usually easy to install and setup, requires no advanced knowledge by the user, and often can be purchased for less than $30( one vendor of keylogging software is PCSentinel Software – www.pcsentinelsoftware.com ). Outside of physically being present and watching while a child uses the computer, keylogger software is the only way for a parent to know exactly how their child is using their computer.

Unfortunately, some parents are reluctant to use keylogger software because they feel they are they are spying on their children, or that their children are good kids and don’t require this level of supervision. However, the fact remains that even “good” or “smart” children are still just children and often make, or can be induced to make, very bad choices with awful consequences. Even savvy children who feel they are protecting their private information from strangers in chat rooms often don’t realize how much personal information they may reveal over many conversations – and predators are known to keep detailed files on their victims, often piecing together small bits of information gathered over many conversations to construct an outline of a child’s daily routine and whereabouts.

Ultimately, it is hard to argue that keylogging software is not a necessary tool for every parent with children who have access to the internet. Simply put, it is the parent’s responsibility to know with certainty what is going on in their children’s lives – and given the dangers of unmonitored internet access the only way parents really know how their children are using their computer is through keylogging software.

About The Author

Michael Ryan owns and operates PCSentinel Software, developer of easy-to-use keylogger software such as PCSentinel’s Busted: Keylogger and Instant Message Monitor and PCSentinel’s Red-Handed: Record Instant Messages!

• The U.S. child homicide rate (2.6 per 100,000 for children younger than 15 years) is five times higher than the rate of 25 other industrialized countries combined, according to the CDC.
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death for adolescents. The rate of suicide among adolescents increased 128 percent between 1960 and 2000.
• According to a 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) Report, 28 percent of the nation’s youth have participated in a serious fight either at school or at work, have taken part in a group-against-group fight, or have attacked others with the intent of seriously hurting them.
• The U.S. Department of Justice reports that juveniles are twice as likely as adults to be victims of serious violent crime and three times as likely to be victims of assault.
• In one-third of the sexual assaults reported to law enforcement, the victim is under the age of 12.
• According to a comprehensive 1995 study of the prevalence of violence among youth, approximately 8.8 million youths indicated that they had seen someone else being shot, stabbed, sexually assaulted, physically assaulted, or threatened with a weapon.
• An estimated one in eight 17-year-olds have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at some point in their lifetimes, according to the same study cited above.
• The average child sees 16,000 murders on television by age 18. Although homicide rates have decreased, network news coverage of homicides has ballooned.

Source: SAMHSA, an Agency of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, http://pathwayscourses.samhsa.gov/

The study found that both children who bully and those who are bullied carry weapons to schools:

• About 50 percent of boys and 30 percent of girls who had bullied others in school reported carrying a weapon.
• Thirty-six percent of boys and 15 percent of girls who had been bullied carried a weapon.
• Youth who are bullied and who also bully others away from school were nearly 16 times more likely to carry a weapon.

The short-term consequences of bullying for the victim are more than a black eye from a fight or a damaged reputation from an e-mail message. Those who are bullied feel tense and afraid and unable to concentrate on their studies. However, available figures indicate that bullying is coming at tremendous health, educational, and other costs to society.

Source: SAMHSA , the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

• Youth who are bullied have higher rates of suicide, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse.ref
• Hostile kids who mistrust others are much more likely than their peers to develop physical symptoms linked to diabetes and heart attacks in the future.ref
• Youth who bully others frequently behave badly in school and are more likely to smoke and drink alcohol.ref
• According to the latest Secret Service Safe School Initiative, almost 75 percent of students who used violent weapons at school (e.g., guns or knives) to attack others felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident.ref

Source: SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Recognizing bullying for what it is shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that schools are dangerous breeding grounds for crime and violence. The CDC notes that the majority of injuries that occur at schools are unintentional and not violent. Less than 1 percent of all homicides among children and adolescents are school related.ref

However, there is no doubt that bullying can increase the “fear factor” in school environments.

Source: SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

• According to the results of a nationwide survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, ref bullying affects nearly one out of every three U.S. children in grades 6-10.
• One third of high school students polled about issues related to school size said their schools had serious problems with bullying.ref
• A review of 1999 data collected by the Federal government on school safety among 12- to 18-year-old students found that approximately 36 percent of students reported seeing hate-related graffiti at school.ref
• Fifty-five percent of 8- to 11-year-olds and 68 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds say bullying is a big problem.ref
• A nationwide survey highlighted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 6.6 percent of students in grades 9-12 had missed at least one day of school during the 30 days preceding the survey because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school.ref
• A survey by the American Association of University Women found that although students today are likely to be aware of school sexual harassment policies, 8 in 10 students — both boys and girls — said they experienced some type of sexual harassment in school. The results were the same among urban, suburban, or rural schools.ref

There are signs that bullying is on the rise. According to the National Education Association (NEA), in recent years, “bullying has become more lethal and has occurred more frequently” than in the previous two decades.ref The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has called bullying “the most common form of violence in society”.ref

Groups such as the NEA, NASP, American Medical Association, and the American Bar Association have launched major initiatives to draw attention to the issue. Partly in response to several highly publicized school shootings across the country in recent years, several State legislatures have passed laws requiring schools to adopt antibullying policies.

Source: SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Today’s children aren’t any more likely than their parents to place an encounter with a bully among their fondest memories of childhood. Those who argue otherwise might try explaining why so many adults can instantly recall not just the first, but also the last names of the individuals involved in childhood bullying incidents.
Bullying is repeated physical, verbal, sexual, or psychological attacks or intimidation.

At one time, school bullying may have been viewed as a “rite of passage” that built “character.” Today, however, it’s no longer regarded as just something that happens during playground routines. Educators, health and mental health practitioners, parents, and community members are realizing that it is a serious problem that can lead to more severe long-term problems for individuals and communities. Some experts believe that bullying should be considered a special form of child abuse-sometimes called “peer abuse,” the cruelty of children to each other.

Federal researchers have found that bullying is related to more serious forms of violence-both for the victims and for the bullies-including frequent fighting and the carrying of weapons. Bullying is also associated with a higher risk of substance abuse.
Not all aggressive behavior among children and youth should be considered “bullying.” Bullying is generally defined as repeated physical, verbal, sexual, or psychological attacks or intimidation by one individual who is perceived as being physically or psychologically stronger than another. In a general sense, a student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students.

Source: SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

• What was the best thing that happened to you today?
• What do you love about school/work?
• What does success mean to you?
• What makes you scared?
• What do you remember about your first day at school/work?
• What three things make a person popular in your school/at work?
• What makes you laugh?
• Why do you think some kids/adults dress differently?
• Talk more about this.
• What makes you angry?
• Where would you go if you could travel anywhere in the world? Why?
• What’s a skill you wish you had? Why?
• What one thing would you do to make the world more peaceful?
• If you could go back in time and live in any era, what would it be? Why?
• Do you like being challenged? How?
• How can we stop violence?
• What other cultures interest you? Why?
• If you could share anything with your best friend, what would it be? Why?
• If you could write a book, what kind of book would it be? Why?
• If you could sit down with the most powerful person in the world and give that person advice, what would that be?
• Do you learn more when you win or when you lose? Tell me more.
• If you could do one thing to make the earth cleaner and more livable, what would it be? Why?
• A blank coupon – you decide what to talk about.

Source: the National Mental Health Information Center

These questions are to be used to start conversations about bullying and bullying prevention. Feel free to adapt the questions to your own conversational styles. The questions are designed to generate open and honest discussions. Please be careful to respect any concerns or sensitive issues raised by the answers. Again, if problems do arise, please read the additional materials provided by this project, take a break and talk about the issue later, or seek the help of a mental health professional.

General Questions

• What does “bullying” mean to you?
• Do you ever feel lonely at school or left out of activities? Let’s talk about what happens and what you feel.
• What is lunch time like at your school?
• Who do you sit with, what do you do, and what do you talk about?
• What’s it like to ride the school bus? Tell me about it.
• Do kids ever call you mean names, or tease you?
• Talk more about how you feel and what you do when this happens.
• Have you ever been scared to go to school because you were afraid of being bullied?
• What ways have you tried to change it?
• Have kids ever bullied you by hitting or pushing you, or other things like that?
• Let’s talk about what you do when this happens.

Ask these questions if there is an indication that a child may have been bullied…

• Who usually does the bullying? (Boys/girls?) (Older kids or kids in your grade or class?)
• Why do you think they bully?
• Did you talk with an adult at school or a friend about being bullied? Did it help? If not, what would have helped?
• Talk about how you felt when you were being bullied. Take your time.
• Now that we’re talking about bullying, what can I do to help?

Ask these questions if someone has witnessed bullying…

• What do you usually do when you see bullying going on?
• Describe what the bullies are like.
• Do you ever see kids at your school being bullied by other kids?
• How does it make you feel?
• Have you ever tried to help someone who was being bullied? What happened?
• What would you do if it happens again?
• Have you ever called another person names?
• Do you think that was bullying? Talk more about that.
• Do you or your friends ever leave other kids out of activities?
• Talk more about this possible bullying behavior.

Ask these questions to discuss bullying prevention programs…

• What do you think needs to happen at school to stop bullying?
• Would you be willing to tell someone if you had been bullied? Why? Why not?
• Is your school doing special things to try and prevent bullying?
• If so, tell me about the school’s rules and programs against bullying.
• Would you feel like a “tattletale” if you told that someone was bullying you or a friend? Why?
• Let’s talk about what your friends could do to help stop the bullying.
• What things do you think parents could/should do to help stop bullying?
• What are some good qualities about yourself?
• Let’s talk about why it’s so important to feel good about yourself.
• How would all this help to prevent bullying?

Source: SAMHSA’s National Mental Health Information Center