Renown Author Rosalind Wiseman Offers Cyber-Bullying Solutions

Social media and cyber bullying have presented unprecedented challenges for parents, educators and students and author Rosalind Wiseman offered what she believes is sound advice Monday night to deal with this complicated issue.

“Facebook never solves problems,” Wiseman said. “You need to do it in real life.”

She added, now more than ever, parents and teachers need to work together because there are no walls with technology, there should be no walls between home and school.

With social networking such an innate part of the lives of young adults, the only way to address and resolve bullying issues is face-to-face. People are likely to be more aggressive or confrontational online than in person and chatting online creates easy access to exasperate the situation by the use of copying conversations or making the discussion public.

Wiseman, author of "Queen Bees and Wannabees," which was the basis for the movie, "Mean Girls," gave a PowerPoint presentation outlining methods, scenarios and tips for educators and parents to use to verbally defuse bullying situations. One point she stressed, for both physical bullying and cyberbullying, was if a person's dignity was being challenged by another person's behavior, it is an act of bullying.

 "Dignity is not negotiable for anyone," she said.

Wiseman admits with the evolution of social media bullying has not only changed in how it occurs, but also how it evolves, how it is handled and how it is perceived. There are no longer walls separating school and home, social media is everywhere at all times. These advances help ignite bullying, while at the same time paralyze resolutions she said.

Wiseman's presentation was part of a two-day anti-bullying forum hosted by Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett at the Peabody-Marriott hotel which continues this morning with a series of workshops for educators.

Wiseman is an expert on children, teens, parenting, bullying, social justice, and ethical leadership, for parents and educators to help them address bullying, cyberbullying and risky behaviors.

Wiseman shared several techniques for parents and educators to help them deal with bullying situations, with both the bully and person being bullied known as SEAL. The model consists of four components:

Stop, breathe, listen, think - when and where to talk, now or later;

Explain - what happened that you don’t like, what do you want to do;

Affirm - affirm and acknowledge what occurred;

Lock - lock in the friendship with the bully, take a vacation from them, or lock them out.

When first learning about a bullying situation parents’ first reaction is anger, Wiseman said. By following the steps of SEAL, parents can make a better choice on how they should react, she said. Then the parent will explain what they heard or saw, the child will affirm or acknowledge the situation and discuss the method of resolution, she said.

Wiseman said in the past advice surrounding bullying was either to ignore the bully, walk away from the situation or retaliate physically. Without walls for technology there is no longer a way to ignore or walk away, online is ever present, physical retaliation is never the solution.

“For a long time we have been telling kids to ignore a bully, it wont work, with 85 percent of teenagers having a cell phone walking away is not an option,” she said.

Wiseman also emphasized if an adolescent confides in an adult about a bullying situation it most likely has been occurring for a long period of time and they have been agonizing about talking to someone for some time. If a parent tells the adolescent to ignore it, Wiseman said it sends the wrong message.

The adult should show compassion, establish the trust and discuss what the child would like to see happen, she said. It is important not to promise the child they wont tell anyone else, but offer the two establish the next steps and if need be discuss a person they both feel would better help in the situation, Wiseman explained.