Odd Girl Out (47 page)

You are there no matter what.
The only thing worse than getting cyberbullied is having to go through it alone. The kids who don't disclose when they are targets fear that parents will overreact without consulting them or take their technology away. Staying calm is key. An alarmist response—shouting, crying, making threats against the school—will upset your daughter further and probably silence her the next time something happens. For more on how to handle this moment, read chapter ten. Make sure your child knows she won't lose her devices if she is targeted (though a temporary hiatus may be called for in order to cool off), and that she can come to you for any reason and under any circumstance. Let her know you will work with her on the right response. You do not have to promise that you won't have feelings about it, and you can say there may be times when you need to make a tough decision as a parent. The most important thing is that you want her to feel comfortable coming to you.

Do not share your password under any circumstances.
Many girls share a password to bond with a friend, but it's precisely these friends who may abuse it. It is all too common for girls to break into each other's accounts and send out e-mails, photos, or texts pretending to be someone else. Advise your daughter to treat her password like a credit card; in other words, there are some valuable things we do not share with our closest friends, no matter how much we love them. If your daughter resists, tell her to blame her secrecy on you the next time she is asked for her password. You can also tell her it's okay to let you know she gave out her password so you can change it together. In general this is a good opportunity for girls to learn how to set healthy boundaries with friends.

Help others in need.
You have likely taught your daughter to look out for others as well as herself. In the virtual realm, the same civic obligations exist. Forwarding a hurtful message is an active way of participating in cyberbullying. When you share a hurtful e-mail or image with ten people, it's the same thing as writing ten separate notes and passing on that information to each person, one by one. Online, you can actually stand up for someone by doing nothing—that is, by refusing to forward an embarrassing message.

Remind her of times she stood up for a friend or peer in "real life." Draw the analogy online: if she sees harassing messages, embarrassing photos, or other wrongdoing, you expect her to exercise the same kindness. Her role as a witness is a vital part of her contract with you.

"
Walk away" from a bad situation online.
Anyone—your daughter, you, the president of the United States—who is typing while crying, seething, panicking, or exhibiting any other intense feeling should not be typing. We will all invariably say something we do not mean.

If your daughter is upset and holding an electronic device, take away the device. Expect a fight, of course, along with fervent insistence that typing is the only way to resolve the conflict. You have two choices: The first is to take the device away, let her calm down for a while, and invite her to call the person in question. You can offer to take her to the person's house or encourage her to make a time to meet him or her at school the next day. The second choice is to allow her to finish her conversation and talk with her later about the perils of typing while distraught. Either way, do not let the moment pass.

Other toxic typing temptations include alliance building, or ganging up. Girls constantly pressure each other to get involved in conflicts that are not their own. The same is true online, and it can be even easier to get sucked in with just a few typed words. Work together to brainstorm strategies to deal with the pressure. Here's what I suggest girls type in the face of a request to get involved in someone else's conflict: "I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I don't think I should get involved. I promise I won't talk to [the other person], either. No matter what happens between you guys, things between us will stay the same." Some lower-intensity responses include, "I don't feel comfortable doing this (or "I'm not cool with this"). Let's talk later." If she can, she should simply change the subject.

If someone is directly confronting your daughter, encourage her to type something like this: "I really don't want to talk about this online. Can I call you right now?" Another option: "Can we talk tomorrow at school at [suggested time]?"

If you wouldn't say it, don't send it.
When they are upset, girls constantly type things they would never say to someone's face. Conflict is the unavoidable result. Surges of panic, insecurity, anger, jealousy, or fear lead to impulsive messages that leave smoldering holes in relationships. It is unrealistic to think we can monitor girls' every conversation. That said, talk with your daughter about the temptation to be someone online that you are not in real life, and the consequences that may follow.

I give girls two tips to avoid making this mistake. First, if you are obsessed with the need to send a message, and it is a need so powerful that your house could be burning down, but you would want to keep texting (or chatting, or whatever), you should not be typing. You are too upset and likely to say something you don't mean. Put down the phone or walk away from the computer.

Second, if you suspect a conflict is brewing with someone via text or online, slow yourself down. Before you post or send your message, read aloud to yourself what you have written. Ask yourself: Would you actually say these words to the person? If the answer is yes, press send. If the answer is no or maybe, go back and edit it. Say it out loud again: Does it sound like something you would say? Are you using capital letters to "yell" online when you probably wouldn't raise your voice in real life? Do not press send until what you have written matches what you might say.

Do not fight with your friends online.
If you want to parent effectively, respect what appeals to girls about online conflict. First, you don't have to look the person in the eye or hear her voice. Second, you have all the time you need to come up with just the right reply. Go ahead and acknowledge these perks to your daughter—then pick them apart.

When you're not looking at someone, you stop thinking about her feelings. When we do not make eye contact, we are less sensitive to hurting the other person and more focused on venting our own emotions. We are likely to say things we don't mean. We get puffed up with false confidence that quickly evaporates and leaves us with a mess.

When we can't hear someone's voice, it's hard to know what tone the other person is using. Take the sentence, "I never said she stole your boyfriend." Repeat the sentence several times, each time placing emphasis on a different word. The sentence can sound angry, defensive, confused—you get the picture.
⁹²
Misunderstandings happen constantly: All we see are words, but we might decide the person is angry without actually knowing the truth. Unnecessary drama often results.

Tell your daughter that fighting online can seem like a good idea when you think about it, but when you actually try it, it gets messy quickly. Technology is never a substitute for honest, real relationships. As hard as it feels to talk to someone face to face or voice to voice, this is the best and only way to settle conflicts with respect and maturity. E-mail can be an exception, if it is used with care. When e-mail becomes a gateway for angry texts or chats, it is no longer productive.

Do not use social media to vent about your relationships.
Social media allows users to post status updates, quick public statements that usually say where or how they are. Unfortunately, as I show in chapter four, many girls use status updates to vent about people, inviting their entire social network to observe, weigh in, or, worse, become involved. To wit, an update posted by a middle-school student, available to several hundred of her closest "friends": "So glad ur nt in my life anymore! Im beta off without you!" These are almost guaranteed drama starters because the subject of the update feels embarrassed, angry, or otherwise compelled to retaliate. Talk to your daughter about what is appropriate to share in an update, and what is best left between individuals.

Talk about sexting.
While sending sexual photos or text does not obviously fall into the area of bullying or aggression, embarrassing photos in the wrong hands can become a powerful weapon used by boys and girls alike. As I show in chapter four, boys may ask girls to send a revealing photograph as a way to flirt. Unfortunately, many also do it so they can show it to their friends. Being in possession of a naked or half-naked photo of a peer is a source of status for boys and a way to affirm their masculinity. Many girls fear if they do not send a photo, the guy will lose interest. To maintain the relationship, they comply.

Speak frankly with your daughter about what to do if she is asked to send a photograph. You will have more credibility with her if you can critique sexting as a practice without making it seem like you oppose flirting or (if you are comfortable saying so) dating. Rosalind Wiseman wisely writes, "A reasonable fifteen-year-old girl in real life would never stand in front of a guy she liked, take off all her clothes and ask, 'Now do you like me?' Nor would she think it was acceptable for that boy to bring all his friends over to weigh in on the decision ..."
⁹³
The issue is not her attraction to a boy, but the power she gives him when she presses send. Even if the boy promises not to share the photo, there are countless stories of said trusted boys having their phones wrestled away by eager peers who forward the photo to their own devices.

If she does sext, and an image or message gets out of control, she must be able to turn to you for support. If she is being humiliated electronically, focus on getting through the crisis and helping her face going back to school. When the consequences of her behavior die down, you can step in and introduce your own.

 

I speak with parents all over the country about the challenges of parenting in the digital age. At the end of my workshops, I leave time for parents to share homespun strategies and struggles. Like the first kernels of popcorn popping slowly in a microwave, the voices begin tentatively. One parent talks about finding her daughter texting in the middle of the night, while another confides he can't stop checking his BlackBerry. Heads nod in recognition, and they laugh. They share their own rules (or lack thereof) at home. The parents leave with the confidence to try something different with their kids.

No matter how advanced technologies become, our very human habits and instincts remain. When people talk, they learn from each other. They create communities that provide affirmation and comfort. Do not underestimate the power of your peers to help you re-claim the authority your gadget-obsessed daughter may be working hard to take away. Most important, remember what you stand for as a parent. When families commit to the core values that have guided their parenting from day one, technology becomes a lot less daunting. There is nothing that happens online that you cannot help your child through. No gadget, no website, no application will ever change the fact that you are the parent. The most important manual you will need is the one that guides your own heart.

When I first wrote
Odd Girl Out,
I had no experience in the classroom other than as an observer. All that changed when the book was published. I began working with schools to develop strategies to reduce bullying. I went into the trenches, serving as a classroom teacher with girls in elementary, middle, and high schools. I co-founded the Girls Leadership Institute and wrote curricula to develop girls' social-emotional learning skills. Today, I am a teacher myself.

One of our best hopes for changing the hidden culture of girls' aggression is educators. An educator can create a classroom culture that understands the range of girls' aggressions, refuses to tolerate them, invites girls' private and public discussion of them, and seeks solutions wherever possible. It is in the classroom that a girl can learn that alternative aggressions are nonassertive acts. Educators can teach girls that indirection and manipulation are unsatisfactory ways to express negative feelings.

Beginning in preschool, along with how to stand in line, how to be quiet when the teacher asks, how to take care of the pet guinea pig, and how to wait their turn, girls and boys can learn that alternative aggressions are not acceptable. Just as they are taught that punching to get what you want is a kind of violence, students must learn that threatening to not be someone's friend is, too. The lessons must begin early and continue year after year. Just because alternative aggressors sigh instead of shout, snort instead of tease, roll their eyes instead of taunt, or turn their backs instead of hit, they shouldn't be let off the hook. Banning these behaviors and socializing girls
away
from them should become as important as any other lesson in character education.

Yet educators alone cannot be expected to carry this load. If this is a culture that blames parents for everything wrong at home, it's also a culture that blames educators for everything wrong at school. Educators cannot be the architects of lasting change without the support of colleagues, principals, and superintendents. On a day-today level, educators must feel that time spent on these issues is neither wasted nor stolen but instead important to their students' education and development. This chapter examines girl bullying from an educator's perspective. I explore the obstacles professionals face, along with strategies they can use right now to create a safer learning environment for students.

 

barriers to intervention

Pursuing alternative aggressions in and out of the classroom can be as treacherous for educators as it is for girls and parents. Pushed and pulled by parents and administrators, working under vague or nonexistent anti-bullying policies, faced with impossibly high standards and shrinking budgets, and exhausted and undercompensated, educators may be less inclined to discipline behavior that is often invisible. It is not uncommon for public school classrooms to be crowded with as many as thirty-five students. As Peggy Orenstein points out in
Schoolgirls,
educators sometimes have only girls to thank for the few moments of order in class. Girls have long played the straight man to the boys' class clown; the American Association of University Women has documented the dwarfing of girls' voices in schools by more rambunctious boys. It is precisely girls' reputation for civility that provides the perfect cover for covert aggressors, giving them unrestricted movement beneath the radar.
⁹⁴