Cyber bullying is an increasing problem in today’s teenagers/society, I know this as I am a victim of cyber bullying. 

If you’ve ever been a victim of online bullying, you’ve probably been told: “oh, they are just jealous” or “they like you” or something along the lines of there’s something wrong with them and they take it out on other people. But that’s not likely to be true. Teenagers today are just mean, there’s nothing to it. 

Two anonymous messages I’ve gotten recently are “Why do you act like your so cool and stuff and you act like you have a body you look like a apple and you think your famous and stuff” and a few hours after that message, I got this one “No one is jealous of looking like bowling ball and they think they look like a model and make guys cringe.” I am not asking for compliments, but these are two mean, anonymous messages and evidence of the cyber bullying that I have experienced. 

As you can see, this is something we need to take action in. In order to help with fixing this problem, you can do a number of things. 

1. Monitor your children’s online usage: but please do this only to a certain extent. Don’t make your child feel disconnected, like his or her privacy has been imposed on, or like you don’t want them to have freedom. Just try to keep them under a small watch so nothing goes bad. 
2. Ask about their day: this goes such a long way, and if your child has had a bad day or something happened to them they will most likely unload if they feel like you actually care. And if not then they will most likely show some signs of discomfort or unusual behavior.
3. Pay attention: if your child has not been eating, sleeping, or taking care of hygiene as they should. Those are some small signs of depression, also if they do these things more often than normal. Pay attention to their forearms and legs for signs of irregular cuts or bruising.