Cyber Bullying and General Information - Volume 1, March 2014 | Page 5

Are the kids not hearing or listening or watching?
By: Carol Todd
It’s hard to understand why we keep hearing about stories in real life and on social media from and about the things that are happening in
the lives of both kids and parents. Kids not being nice to one another. Kids sharing pictures of themselves. Kids taking inappropriate
pictures and videos of others and then posting and sharing them through texting and social media. The Depart of Justice of Canada has a
news release out - Cyberbullying and the Non-Consensual distribution of Intimate Images and is hoping to make some changes to the laws
that govern this social issue.

Kids today do not understand the repercussions of cruel gestures and pranks they think is only a ‘joke’. As educators and caregivers, we
always ask the question - how do we develop capacities of learning? Now we also need to ask -- how do we develop resiliency? Is timidity
even a word?
I think often about how we aren’t able to see, hear or recognize the signs in a child that isn’t happy. Kids today don’t feel as if they are
being listened to enough or at all and then sometimes, they just give up talking about it. Or you may see a child going from being so very
confident to one that becomes quiet, lonely and depressed. They may become more isolated and spend time on their own in their
rooms. As parents, we may think that this is 'just a teenage phase’ as we remember the days when we were in our own bedrooms
listening to 45 rpm records and cassette tapes.
But the kids are in their rooms for different reasons and usually technology and social media are part of that reason. Unless social media
among our children is being somewhat monitored, there are chances that it may be the catalyst that causes much hurt, anger and
depression among our tweens and teens (and even young adults).