Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why mine dont do instragrams, the facebook, or twitter. I am the parent, I pay the bills, I allow or disallow the Apps.

I've hammered it over and over. People just eventually get themselves in trouble on social media. Its a sure thing, eventually. Aint worth it.

Also, you cant be cyberbullied if nobody can cyber contact you. Think about that. Also you cant inadvertently anger someone.

I dont use this stuff, and dont allow my kids to. When they get to be 18 and pay the bills, they can I guess. But maybe by then I will have been vindicated and they will stay clear.

Of course you can be cyberbullied even if you aren't on social media. If everyone in school is posting mean stuff about your kid on Instagram and talking about it in school, do you think your kid won't know or suffer??? That's just a stupid thing to tell your kids because they know its not true.

Anonymous wrote:Oh that is really common. It’s died due to nobody being in school, but was a thing last year. Especially the “ship” pages (crushes??). I would stay out of it unless my kid was named.

Anonymous wrote:I think almost every middle school likely has something like this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's school has it. It's half "blind items" (guess which popular basketball star asked out the girl known for sucking her hair and eating lunch in the library?) and half "Overheard" items. They love it and find it hilarious.

My daughter, who is small, white, and has long brown hair was out sick for a week. Here's the overheard:

DD: Hi
Mr. G: You're back! You were gone so long I forgot what you looked like.
DD: I still look like this.
Mr. G: So you're not bald, black and bodacious?

Why the hell do you think something like this is hilarious?

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's school has it. It's half "blind items" (guess which popular basketball star asked out the girl known for sucking her hair and eating lunch in the library?) and half "Overheard" items. They love it and find it hilarious.

My daughter, who is small, white, and has long brown hair was out sick for a week. Here's the overheard:

DD: Hi
Mr. G: You're back! You were gone so long I forgot what you looked like.
DD: I still look like this.
Mr. G: So you're not bald, black and bodacious?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:free speech

Children who are too young to sign up for instagram do not have free speech on instagram.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's school has it. It's half "blind items" (guess which popular basketball star asked out the girl known for sucking her hair and eating lunch in the library?) and half "Overheard" items. They love it and find it hilarious.

My daughter, who is small, white, and has long brown hair was out sick for a week. Here's the overheard:

DD: Hi
Mr. G: You're back! You were gone so long I forgot what you looked like.
DD: I still look like this.
Mr. G: So you're not bald, black and bodacious?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why mine dont do instragrams, the facebook, or twitter. I am the parent, I pay the bills, I allow or disallow the Apps.

I've hammered it over and over. People just eventually get themselves in trouble on social media. Its a sure thing, eventually. Aint worth it.

Also, you cant be cyberbullied if nobody can cyber contact you. Think about that. Also you cant inadvertently anger someone.

I dont use this stuff, and dont allow my kids to. When they get to be 18 and pay the bills, they can I guess. But maybe by then I will have been vindicated and they will stay clear.

Of course you can be cyberbullied even if you aren't on social media. If everyone in school is posting mean stuff about your kid on Instagram and talking about it in school, do you think your kid won't know or suffer??? That's just a stupid thing to tell your kids because they know its not true.

Actually, people can get bullied at school or workplace, but it is hard to get cyber bullied on social media if they are not on social media. Real life bullying happens when people know you and interact with you in real life. Cyberbullying can happen with someone who knows you and targets you, but is joined by online trolls who may not even know you.

I am a school counselor. Cyberbullying does not get traction at all when the intended victim is not on social media. The above pp has a great point, however, remember that even if the children are not on social media, they can be targeted and harmed by being on the internet or using their smart phones in many other ways.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 7th grade daughter told me that some anonymous kid started an Instagram page called “ insert school name here” tea. Kids send in gossip about other kids and the senders name is removed. Pretty much every kid in the school follows it. This is horrifying and i think this might actually be common for other schools. The sad thing is that I don’t think there’s anything that can really be done to stop it.

Can you tell us what school please? Parents need to know this stuff because if kids are writing mean stuff they need to know about it.

Do you have your own instagram? I searched for my kid's school by typing in "(school name) tea" and found that a page that existed but the anonymous owner saying they were going inactive and not posting anymore. There are also "ships" pages - harder to find, but if you are on instagram and follow your kid, you can look at what your kid is following.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why mine dont do instragrams, the facebook, or twitter. I am the parent, I pay the bills, I allow or disallow the Apps.

I've hammered it over and over. People just eventually get themselves in trouble on social media. Its a sure thing, eventually. Aint worth it.

Also, you cant be cyberbullied if nobody can cyber contact you. Think about that. Also you cant inadvertently anger someone.

I dont use this stuff, and dont allow my kids to. When they get to be 18 and pay the bills, they can I guess. But maybe by then I will have been vindicated and they will stay clear.

Of course you can be cyberbullied even if you aren't on social media. If everyone in school is posting mean stuff about your kid on Instagram and talking about it in school, do you think your kid won't know or suffer??? That's just a stupid thing to tell your kids because they know its not true.

Actually, people can get bullied at school or workplace, but it is hard to get cyber bullied on social media if they are not on social media. Real life bullying happens when people know you and interact with you in real life. Cyberbullying can happen with someone who knows you and targets you, but is joined by online trolls who may not even know you.

I am a school counselor. Cyberbullying does not get traction at all when the intended victim is not on social media. The above pp has a great point, however, remember that even if the children are not on social media, they can be targeted and harmed by being on the internet or using their smart phones in many other ways.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's middle school has a few of these accounts. You can report them to Instagram but the kids will just start another account.

It's still worthwhile to tell the school and push for the counseling office and/or administration to be very clear with kids that this is not acceptable. It may be "legal" -- if the kids are over 13 -- but it's not acceptable.

Kids need to start understanding that adults, including their own teachers, counselors and the principal and staff, can and will look at students' online activity and won't hesitate to call them out it.

When a bunch of "ship" postings were running like wildfire through our MS, the principal was all over it the minute she was told about it (by the parents of a student who was very distressed by being pictured on it). Some kids ended up having to go to her office and explain why they felt it was appropriate to publicly post pictures of other kids who had not given permission to them to do so. That nonsense ended fast.

Parents need to be more active about monitoring kids and cracking down if the kids are doing things that are mean or just plain dumb online. It's not a place to experiment with being foolish, despite the fact that many adults treat social media that way. These same kids who find social media gossip funny now are going to be the ones who as seniors are posting pictures of themselves drinking and acting the fool, and yes -- colleges now actually DO look at applicants' social media and where they're tagged on others' social media. Not all the time, no. But enough that parents should be concerned enough to teach their kids to stop thinking everything they post is just for fun.