I started to read up on cyber-bullying after the recent suicide of Phoebe Prince, with nine children charged for their contribution. I thought, how could schools miss this? Why didn’t the parents catch what was going on? It bothers me that such an emotional attack could be waged without anyone noticing. It has to do with how pervasive technology is in our children’s lives. The paths stretch much deeper than malicious posts on a child’s Facebook or MySpace page.

An often overlooked but more intimidating method of cyber-bullying is done through mobile phones. This is a device rarely out of a teenager’s reach. An attack can happen any time, anywhere, leaving the child feeling that there is no escape from the threats or taunts. The messages are held directly in the hand of the victim. Imagine if you received a text that said, “I can see you right now and you better run.”  Texting can be used to quickly spread rumors about your child to a wide audience. The opportunities for emotional intimidation are endless.

Aggressive texts can sometimes be the precursor to actual violence. Text harassment has become part of abusive relationships.  The fact that text messages can be kept private and hidden makes them particularly dangerous when it comes to dating violence. Demi Brae Cuccia, for instance, was murdered by her boyfriend the day after her sixteenth birthday. Her boyfriend had texted her with aggressive messages such as, “Wow… You no you love me and can’t live without me,” She was stabbed sixteen times that night.

With today’s more advanced phones like the iphone or the Droid, media like pornography or homicide photographs can be sent uninvited to your child.  Another type of harassment involves text wars, a group attack on a single victim, sending thousands of messages to the child’s phone. After seeing the phone bill angry parents may confront their child, not understanding that they are the victim of a bullying scheme.

The most important thing we can do is what we should be doing already. Talking to our children. We have to continue to try and make them comfortable sharing things that are often horribly embarrassing to them.