A Fight Against Cyber Bullying

"One day," said Youth Pastor Emily Wilmarth. "I had just preached a sermon about giving voice to people who are voiceless, and after the sermon Jill came up to me and told me that it is just like standing up against bullying."

Jill Brown is founder of itsmylocker.com, a website similar to Facebook, but devoted to the special needs of kids who face the pain of online bullying.

"Kids and parents can use it together," said Brown. Itsmylocker.com is a great website for children to use to solve the problem of online bullying, she said.

"People were using itsmylocker.com, that is just the solution to the problem, but I found out that not many people knew what the problem was," said Brown.

The problem was bullying, whether it be through texting, chat, or social networking sites. Kids were picking on other kids through the anonymity of a computer screen. "Cyber bullying is really intense, and often kids who are the victims think of suicide," said Brown.

With new technologies come new ways of taunting peers, and generationtextonline.com addresses the problem of cyber bullying through education. "It's a program that not only teaches kids about the problem, but also school administrators, teachers, and even guidance counselors," said Brown.

Getting everyone who is present in a school environment can truly make a huge difference whereas previously such incidents often went unnoticed or unacknowledged. Generationtextonline.com went to one hundred schools in the last few months, taking the initiative to tackle such a widespread problem.

"We use real life examples from what is going on in the world and from history, too, like the Holocaust or the Civil Rights movement," said Brown. Kids are able to piece their every day lives together and realize injustices that may have been done, and how they could have handled them differently, she said.

Many schools order creative shirts, with slogans that the kids themselves submitted. "Think B4 U Post" and "Just Delete It" are a couple of shirt quotes created by students in the schools the program visited.

Most importantly, it is about the children and their vulnerability in such a technologically advancing time period. The person who is attacked can be left helpless and hurt.

"It is about the victim and what kids can do to help," said Brown. For parents, even simple things like casually talking to children about how their school day is important. Monitoring their cell phone and computer activities is important too, for the purpose of protection, but not to the extent that it is invasive. Guidance counselors, mentors, and school administrators may hold a different place for children. Sometimes kids are more likely to share something with those who aren't family than those who are. "Kids listen. Talk to them about what is going on in their homes," said Brown.

"We want to let kids know about texting, facebook, and Formspring. We aren't telling them not to do it, we are just teaching them to stand up for others. If they see something wrong happening, they should help the victim," said Brown.