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SocialScout, a social networking monitoring service, provides downloadable cyberbully action plan to celebrate National Bullying Prevention Month

Scottsdale, Ariz. (PRWEB) October 17, 2012

We discovered the perpetrator was using my sons name and photo and impersonating him on Facebook, said Taylor. From midnight to morning, the person would post on others pages, saying some pretty harsh things. We first thought his account had been hacked, but it wasnt long before we realized it was an acquaintance of his who had created a profile and acted on his behalf.

According to Aftab.com, a cyberbully and privacy website, 85 percent of middle school aged children have been cyberbullied, but only 5 percent would tell their parents if they were cyberbullied. Perhaps most shocking is that 70 percent of cyberbullying comes from friends or acquaintances.

As cyberbullying continues to grow, it becomes more difficult for children to avoid it, said Betsy Landers, president, National Parent Teacher Association (PTA). Our children cant leave the classroom or playground to shut out cyberbullying; with technology, it follows them everywhere.

This was the first of Taylors four children that used social networking sites, so the landscape was totally new. And, she didnt know what action to take to monitor her children, or how to react to any problems on the networks.

When I was in middle school, the bullying stopped once you left school, said Taylor. Back then we could rumor-monger, but the whole idea of someone copying a photo, creating a new profile, acting as somehow else its just totally new to me. In fact, it was very scary figuring out how to appropriately respond to my son being cyberbullied.

Parents are digital immigrants when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter, so its not obvious what risks social media networks can present, explained Matt Cullina, CEO of IDentity Theft 911. We strongly advocate that before parents permit their child to sign-up for a social networking site, they educate themselves on the dangers, and provide some ground rules before establishing an account like permission to monitor accounts and activities.

SocialScout, a parental intelligence tool for parents to monitor their childs social networking habits, is a key product offering by IDentity Theft 911, the nations premier consultative provider of identity and data risk management resolution and education services. Currently offered to PTA members through a partnership with the National PTA, SocialScout offers a quick and easy way to analyze a childs social networking and mobile phone activity while safeguarding their privacy and reputation on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

"My kids say I'm not a helicopter mom. I'm more of a B-52 bomber mom. But even so, I didn't notice there was a problem right away, said Taylor. A monitoring tool like SocialScout could have helped address my sons cyberbullying issue before it got out of hand.

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Mother of Cyberbullied Child Speaks Out, Advocates Plan to Address Bullying