Girl commits suicide after extended periods of bullying online, and apparently at her school as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/20/facebook-bullying-holly-grogan-suicide
I am very sorry for the family and friends of this girl. I can only imagine the tremendous devastation they must feel.
This is the second suicide, that I'm aware of, that stems in some part from on-line bullying.
Children can be vicious and tenacious, and online they don't have the sense of potential consequences that they do IRL. Mostly because they don't see a lot of parental authority online.
Young kids and tweens need to be monitored online. Most parents I talk to don't have parental controls installed, and if they do- they're switched off.
If you don't have parental controls installed, or you don't think you're going to use what you have now, try this one - I've been using it for a few years, and it works really well.
Download it here: http://download.live.com/familysafety
Directions for using the software, such as managing the contacts, the web filtering, and the reports http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/en-US/Help/5ddc1ec9-5d4f-4288-a62d-4128c3dd0c561033.mspx#EEC
Good kid resources for bullying - list of links here that talk about different kinds of online safety, from bullies and social pressure to predators: http://www.communitywatch.us/ncmec.htm
Before you let your kids go online again, please talk to them about appropriate behavior online, let them know that you have their back (however you phrase it).
They need to understand that you having their back may mean a) you showing up at their school to get a sense of what the dynamic is b) you reading their email and trolling their favorite websites, c) you binging/googling their usernames so you can see what may not be showing up in the report, d) you not backing down from an emotional confrontation about such painful topics as popularity, bullying, etc.
We have those discussions and confrontations in this house, because it's part of parenting a child who was raised with online social networking. Do you call your kid on their behavior at a holiday function? A party? This is the same - you have to be a part of their online social network because you're a parent/guardian, and your kid is a ... kid, whether they're 7 or 17.
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