Cyberbullying: Prevention and Intervention to Protect Our Children and Youth

Abstract Bullying has long been of concern to school officials and parents alike. Bullying, which is a type of aggressive behavior, has now entered the electronic age in the form of cyberbullying (e.g., e-mails, text messages, profile sites). Cyberbullying is especially insidious because it affords a measure of anonymity and the opportunity to reach a much larger number of victims without a significant threat of punishment. In this article, the authors discuss efforts to combat cyberbullying that include prevention and intervention programs at the community, school, and family levels. The authors point out that the majority of U.S. states have written legislation to address bullying and cyberbullying and that many schools have established policies that prohibit electronic bullying and developed consequences for doing so. Last, the authors discuss a number of antibullying curricula and mediated programs, software packages, and intervention strategies for the school and home designed to help protect children and adolescents from being targets of cyberbullying. Keywords: bullyingcyberbullyinginterventionprevention Notes 1. A model school policy related to cyberbullying is available at http:// www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime