Online Bullying

The article that was chosen is based on online harassment between adolescents. It shows how poor parenting along with adolescent psychosocial challenges and the use of the Internet come into play when online harassment happens.
In accordance with the research, poor parenting skills does lead adolescents to be engaging in such activities like online harassment.   This study relates to Diana Baumrind’s patterns of parenting. In this case, indifferent parenting is shown, where as the parent seems to minimize their time that is being spent with their child and indeed can be very neglectful. They tend to know very little about their child’s whereabouts and activities therefore not knowing that their child is on the internet, engaging in negative activities, harassing others online and causing large amounts of stress on others. Indifferent parenting is the least successful form of parenting and is definitely reflected in this research. However, non-harassers reported having a stronger emotional bond between parents, therefore adolescents who tend to have a strong emotional bond with their parents mean that their parents are involved in their life and are on top of what their child is doing. A parent who is neglectful would not know or care that their child is harassing others online where as a parent who does care and is involved in their child’s life will be monitoring their child more, often knowing what they are up to when using the Internet. Furthermore, the parent’s mental health also comes into play, where the adolescent experiences a parent getting a divorce or loosing their job. Such negative situations lead the adolescent to act in such negative online behaviors.
Another topic that the article stresses is the psychosocial challenges that adolescents go through when engaging in online bullying.   These psychosocial challenges include academic challenges, substance abuse, negative life events and delinquency. Going back to poor parenting, nonresponsive... [continues]

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