Dear Parents,                                                               3/26/15

Do you know the terminator that kills all families and threatens relationships?  The one that makes one in fifteen attempted suicides a complete one?

You guessed it: It's social media.

Millions upon millions of students have been bullied.  Repetitive bullying causes death. Now, don't just go home and tell your son or daughter not to be a part of cyberbullying, because there is a good chance they already have.  According to a cyberbullying statistic on the website “isafe”, 53% of kids admit having said something mean or hurtful to another person online and more than 1 in 3 have done it more than once.  Over half of adolescents and teens have either bullied kids or have been bullied themselves. More than one in three young people have experienced cyber threats. Here's the worst one: Well over half of young people do not tell their parents when they cyberbully or when they get cyber bullied. So next time when you think that it's not your "beautiful and perfect" child, think again.  It just might be.

When someone gets cyber bullied, it's not pretty.  It starts as just a mean comment like "Wow, that picture makes you look even uglier.”  Then it gets into fighting.  Back and forth the two fight until a friend joins.  The cyber bully and the person who is being bullied gets their entire friend group to back them up and sends that one comment into a constant down spiral.  All this can lead to suicide, intentional injury, and big trouble face to face with the person.

When you or your child feel that some social media is okay or that no bullying goes on, chances are there is someway to make it bad. For instance, Snapchat. Snapchat "helps" keep children's private parts public. Twitter "helps" to send pointless 140 character bully messages and keeps you constantly up to date on all of the celebrities . Facebook "helps" you stalk people without the person on the other end ever knowing. Vine "helps" us post seven second videos like the Boston Marathon explosion and other miscellaneous videos that make people feel down and suicidal. Now do you believe me? But don't just stop there.

You can't go to your child and tell them to stop. Because we all know what's going to happen the next day. My solution is to just delete all the social media and actually talk instead of using texts or social media.  Do you ever notice what happens at the dinner table?  Kids constantly gaming, texting, liking people's pictures or possibly even cyber bullying. When you start using social media, you can't stop.  According to an article on the website “Social times”,  “Addiction, for one. Social networking already accounts for 28 percent of all media time spent online, and users aged between 15 and 19 spend at least 3 hours per day on average using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.”  When a friend "likes" your picture or texts you, your child feels the need to respond or like their picture back to make them feel "like" a good friend.  All the good in social media can’t outlaw the bad.  The planning, sharing or even just talking can’t beat all of the hidden darkness that lies under social media. So, do a little thinking before hitting that sign-up button next time.