The MindOH! Foundation is pleased to provide you with the following Cyberbullying Prevention Tips and Tools to help create peace of mind for you and the kids in your life. Families and schools can utilize these resources as discussion starters.

These resources are in PDF Format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. Download Acrobat Reader (free).

Tips for Preventing Cyberbullying

• Tips for Preventing Cyberbullying. Advice for kids, parents and educators on how to stop or prevent cyberbullying.


• Tips for Using The MindOH! "Thinking It Through" Activity Sheets. A "How To Guide" to using the activity sheets to gather up to 6 times more information about what is on your child's and student's mind.

Cyberbullying Thinking it Through Worksheets
The MindOH! Thinking It Through worksheets provide kids with a great opportunity to reflect on the poor choices they may be making with regard to bullying, teasing or harassing others. They are given the opportunity to assess their own beliefs and attitudes, consider past experiences, and explore ways of making smarter choices in the future.

• Thinking It Through: It's Just The Internet. For the bully or the bystander. This reflective activity is designed to help young people who participate in online bullying. They make excellent discussion starters.
  
  
• Thinking It Through: The Power of Words on the Internet. For the bully or the bystander. This reflective activity is designed to help young people who participate in online bullying.
  
  
• Thinking It Through: Cruel Messages in an Instant. For the victim. This reflective activity will help kids who have been victims of online bullying and provide a springboard for conversation with a trusted adult.

Cyberbullying Walking the Talk Worksheets
The MindOH! Walking the Talk worksheets provide a opportunity for your kids to interview a trusted adult and gain from that adult’s prior learning experiences. Using a unique tool, the child asks the adult to share a time when the adult was tempted to bully or tease, but chose instead to do the right thing. Through this process, your kids gain valuable insights into the thoughts, opinions and feelings that lead to appropriate choices.

• Walking The Talk: Cyberbullying. For the bully or the bystander. This activity is designed to help young people who participate in cyberbullying. They are encouraged to interview a trusted adult who has been tempted to cyberbully before and instead made the responsible decision not to.

Cyberbullying Lesson Plans
These lesson plans were created for a classroom or group environment.

• Lesson Plan: Instant Cruelty. This activity will allow you and your students to define cyberbullying, explore their knowledge, attitudes and experience with it and determine your Personal Internet Standards.
  
  
• Lesson Plan: Danger Ahead! This activity will allow you and your students to understand how advances in online and electronic communications can present a greater danger to individuals.
  
  
• Lesson Plan: Private Affairs. This activity will allow you and your students to explore the concept of privacy and the consequences of violating the privacy of others as it relates to cyberbullying.
  

Cyberbullying Family Activities 
These family activities were created for use in the home.

Additional Cyberbullying Resources

• Tips for Preventing Cyberbullying. Advice for kids, parents and educators on how to stop or prevent cyberbullying.
  
  
• Cyberbullying Prevention Posters : To hang up in the home, classroom, or computer lab to remind kids that it is not okay to cyberbully.
  
  
• "The Impact of Cyberbullying" by Dr. Beth Manke, Associate Professor in the Human Development Department at the California State University, Long Beach
  
  
• "Behind the Screen: Is There a Bully in the House?" by Elizabeth Van Auken, MindOH! Grant Writer
  
  
• "Character, Bullying and the Cyber-world" by Dr. Marvin Berkowitz and Melinda Bier, University of Missouri-St. Louis

More Information About Cyberbullying

What is it?

Cyberbullying is harassing, humiliating, intimidating and/or threatening others on the Internet or using other technology such as cell phones or PDAs. Although the Internet is most often used for healthy social communications, teens are increasingly using the Internet to deliver cruel and harmful messages and photographs. Cyberbullying sometimes involves racial, religious or culture slurs. It can also be sexual in nature. It can involve someone your child knows or a complete stranger. Cyberbullying can include cruel jokes, malicious gossip, embarrassing information or photographs, and/or Web sites designed to target a specific child or teacher.

Why is it different from regular bullying?

Cyberbullying is different from face-to-face bullying because the bully is removed from the immediate and tangible feedback of the victim. They don't "see" the harm they have caused or the consequences of their actions, which minimizes any feelings of remorse or empathy. This creates a situation where kids do and say things on the Internet that they would be much less likely to do in person.

When does it happen?

Cyberbullying occurs easily away from the watchful eye of an adult, and MNet research shows that 50% of kids are online most of the time without adult supervision. Victims can be reached anytime and anyplace and frequently with complete anonymity.

What can parents do?

Parents are the primary character educators of our children, and bullying of any kind is a character issue. Use the above MindOH! resources as a springboard for discussion about the values that are important to you as a family and how those values impact the issue of bullying and cyberbullying.