It takes a certain kind of child to bully another child. And it takes a certain kind of contempt and disregard for the victim's rights to be able to treat a fellow classmate with cruelty. But at least the traditional bully is relatively easy to identify. A traditional bully draws from a fairly consistent set of bullying methods. He will physically or verbally attack his victim, use relational aggression, or extort. Researchers have studied and pinpointed the constellations of behaviors a traditional bully will employ to bully others. Researchers know the common characteristics of bully children, and they are starting to understand how to intervene and stop the cycle of traditional bullying.
The study of cyber bullying, on the other hand, is in its infancy. This is because researchers are just beginning to understand the full scope of the problem, and because technology is advancing at such a rapid pace, researchers are not able to keep up with the types of bullying it unleashes.
Cyber bullying is not as easy to identify as traditional bullying. In the impersonal and one-dimensional world of the Internet, it can be tough to read the nuances of online communication. For example: you might read an instant message between your son and his friend that appears to be hostile. When you question your son about it, he laughs and says they talk like that online all the time, and that it's just a joke. Or you might find your daughter in tears over an e-mail her friend sent. When you read the e-mail, you can't figure out what your daughter is upset about. Even after you ask for clarification, you are still confused. With online communication, kidding around can be mistaken for bullying, and bullying can be so subtle that it is overlooked or misunderstood by parents.
Deborah Carpenter with Christopher J. Ferguson, Ph.D.
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