Dear Abby/Abner- My friend has a personal blog and she/he is constantly writing inappropriate comments about people at our school. Although there are no names mentioned, sometimes it’s obvious who the person is. I know it’s wrong and it makes me uncomfortable, but my friend thinks it’s funny. What should I do?
Dear Amethyst,
It is not uncommon to be friends with a cyberbully. Many people struggle to make that decision, after all, cyberbullying is related to low self-esteem which many people have nowadays. You are stuck in the middle of going with or against your friend, I know how difficult it may be, but your heart will help you decide.
It is not uncommon to be friends with a cyberbully. Many people struggle to make that decision, after all, cyberbullying is related to low self-esteem which many people have nowadays. You are stuck in the middle of going with or against your friend, I know how difficult it may be, but your heart will help you decide.
At these times you may be indecisive about many things. All you may think about is hurting your friend or hurting those around you. If you are not careful you may accidentally join your friend. Avoid all gossip-related conversations to keep all of your friendships intact.
If her actions make you uncomfortable - take some independence, gain your strength, you don’t have to follow in her footsteps. Confront her to help your’s and other’s self-esteems. You can help save others and your friend who is cyberbullying. She can get to them through emails, texts, and social media sites, causing low self-esteems for many people. It may make you and others uncomfortable, but she needs to stop before more get hurt.
If her actions make you uncomfortable - take some independence, gain your strength, you don’t have to follow in her footsteps. Confront her to help your’s and other’s self-esteems. You can help save others and your friend who is cyberbullying. She can get to them through emails, texts, and social media sites, causing low self-esteems for many people. It may make you and others uncomfortable, but she needs to stop before more get hurt.
You have been friends with her for a while. If you talk and yell at her to stop, you are only giving her more reason to continue her posts if she finds it funny. At my old school I went to, I found myself surrounded by people who were constantly cyberbullied.
I am now annoyed with myself for doing nothing about it because I didn’t know how. I realized that even if I didn’t know who was the cyberbully was, I could have still helped all of my friends who were cyberbullied.
I felt like I had an inability to simply comfort my friends. Not because I was annoyed or anything, but just because I didn’t know how to comfort them.
The solution is to report your friend. If she finds it funny, she obviously is oblivious that she is hurting so many around her, which needs to be stopped to help whoever she is bullying. Here are some steps you can take to stop her from cyberbullying.
Step 1: Try to reason with her. She may find it funny while you don’t, but she should still understand if you just try to reason with her to stop. DO NOT start rumors yourself!
Step 2: If you have tried reasoning with her, you can go to the social media site she makes negative comments on, and report her to the social media site so they can take action and take down her account so that she can’t post anything. For example, at my school, there is a site like that, and people reported the account to the site to shut it down.
Step 3: If she still finds a way around the blocked account, report her to your principal. The comments are about students at your school, so your principal should be able to help.
Step 4: If the principal can’t help with the problem, which shouldn’t happen, you can go around to the people who were cyberbullying, and just comfort them. They are distressed, they need comfort from others who were cyberbullied. You can also ask them to report the account if it was never taken down. You can also tell them that they can block the account and change the settings, that way they will never have to see that account again.
Stand up for the people who are bullied to help their self-esteem, do the right thing!
Good luck!
Sincerely,
Abby
Resources: Cyberbullying, Report Cyberbullying, BrainPOP
I am now annoyed with myself for doing nothing about it because I didn’t know how. I realized that even if I didn’t know who was the cyberbully was, I could have still helped all of my friends who were cyberbullied.
I felt like I had an inability to simply comfort my friends. Not because I was annoyed or anything, but just because I didn’t know how to comfort them.
The solution is to report your friend. If she finds it funny, she obviously is oblivious that she is hurting so many around her, which needs to be stopped to help whoever she is bullying. Here are some steps you can take to stop her from cyberbullying.
Step 1: Try to reason with her. She may find it funny while you don’t, but she should still understand if you just try to reason with her to stop. DO NOT start rumors yourself!
Step 2: If you have tried reasoning with her, you can go to the social media site she makes negative comments on, and report her to the social media site so they can take action and take down her account so that she can’t post anything. For example, at my school, there is a site like that, and people reported the account to the site to shut it down.
Step 3: If she still finds a way around the blocked account, report her to your principal. The comments are about students at your school, so your principal should be able to help.
Step 4: If the principal can’t help with the problem, which shouldn’t happen, you can go around to the people who were cyberbullying, and just comfort them. They are distressed, they need comfort from others who were cyberbullied. You can also ask them to report the account if it was never taken down. You can also tell them that they can block the account and change the settings, that way they will never have to see that account again.
Stand up for the people who are bullied to help their self-esteem, do the right thing!
Good luck!
Sincerely,
Abby
Resources: Cyberbullying, Report Cyberbullying, BrainPOP
My name is Aili. I was especially impressed with how you outlined your letter. Over I loved the whole ting. But my favourite part of your letter was how you connected this problem to your own life and how this happened to you. You might have improved on how you were relating this problem to how it happened to you and how it feels to loose a friend.
ReplyDeleteThe strategy/ tip I would most likely use is writing the the 3 steps as if it was based on a story. I would do this because I thought it really made the letter better and helps me understand even deeper. Awesome Job!
Hello Caitlin! I really liked how you included multiple solutions to the problem-- this was incredibly helpful to the reader especially if they tried one and it didn’t work. But, you also really related the piece to your own life which showed that you understood what the person was going through. I would use the tip that if they don’t take down their site, to comfort the people which the nasty comments are directed at. One thing I think you could work on is maybe including a stronger introduction, but otherwise it was really good. This is a good tip because you help raise their self-esteem- so all in all you are fixing what cyberbullying is destroying.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
From,
Dominique