Everyone remembers the school bully in their lives. These guys (and they were almost always guys) made life miserable, often because their own lives at home were miserable. And so, they took their aggressions to the schoolyard. They taunted and teased, they’d bloody your nose, steal your bike, terrify you, and in the most extreme cases do you some serious bodily harm.

As bad as they were, the good thing about the real-world bullies is that you could identify them, predict their behavior and try to steer clear. If only it were that way in cyberspace.

What we’re learning about cyber bullies is disturbing. Bullies in cyberspace are more likely to be anyone or anywhere. (They can be good, hard working students who find the Internet gives them some freedom to “be bad”). They can be cliques of mean- spirited girls seeking to ostracize one person, or they can be smart but slightly nerdy boys seeking revenge. Cyber bullying is subtle and complex. It often starts with otherwise nice kids from nice families who go online to “have a little fun” at someone else’s expense, but increasingly over the past months we’ve heard of some tragic endings to a cyber bully's reign of terror.

What is Cyber Bullying?
Bullying online can mean name calling, being mean, spreading rumors or lies or being intentionally hurtful. Cyber bullies can use a variety of high tech tools: email, cell phones, pagers, websites, blogs and online journals, instant messages and chat rooms, to name a few.

Is This Cyber Bullying?
1. A class votes for the ugliest girl in school on one of the many online polling websites.
2. A group of girls IM each other about which girl in class they’ll pick on tomorrow in gym.
3. A girl keeps an online journal where she calls a classmate a whore and offers rumored details.
4. A girl, angry at her teacher, calls him “gay” to a group in a school chat room.
5. A boy “borrows” his schools’ email list to blast information about a boy he claims stole his iPod.
6. A boy receives a provocative picture via email from a girl who likes him. The boy shares it with a friend, who, in turn, shares it with the world.
7. A girl gets email every day after school from an anonymous person who calls her the fattest, stupidest, ugliest girl who ever lived.
8. A boy gets an anonymous email saying he'll be beaten up after school the next day.

All these are real life stories and they are all instances of cyber bullying.

What can parents do to minimize cyber bullying?

• Make sure that your kids feel comfortable coming to you with a bullying problem. Many kids worry that their parents will blame them and react by taking their IM or email privileges away.

• Don't confront the bully or the bully's parents unless you're 100% sure you can do it without making it worse for your child. Bullies will often become more bully-ish when they perceive a parent is intervening.

• Do a Google search for your child's name on the web so you can identify any instances where they've been publicly bullied.

• Don't let your child keep profiles of themselves on websites. They become easy targets for bullies and other unsavory solicitation.

• Know everyone on your child's buddy list. Learn how to block unwanted conversations.

• Notify your ISP if you feel the bully is crossing boundaries. Most ISPs will look into the matter and suspend the child's account.

• If the bullying persists, is repeated, or escalates to physical threats you need to notify local law enforcement. Keep printed copies of all bullying messages. It’s very important that you save the header information which helps law enforcement track the problem.

• Work with your school. They have experience in enforcing a certain code of conduct and might be able to help.