Question for Duff: What Should I Do About This Guy Punking My Kid on Facebook?

• i have the same problem... somebody made a facebook profile with my name... i report it..and asked all of my friends to do so..and nothing.... its still there...

• Eye for an eye!! Find out who this punk kid is and do worse to him. Let's see if he or she can take their own medicine. Sometimes you got to hit 'em hard for them to learn. Society is too easy on kids nowadays. Forget about parents cuz parents are as f'ed up as their kids nowadays. Most likely parents will get defensive and won't even acknowledge the facts. In my country they call these parents "monster parents" because they blame everything on others but themselves.

• Hi Id just like to add there's good and bad in every area of life, and young people have to learn to navigate this, the best way they can, with our help of course, One of my four is on the autistic spectrum and the internet is a god send for her and a lot of her friends, as the information it provides tends to be concrete. Social sights help her navigate social interaction, without the pressure of face to face contact, it helps her relax by taking her sole focus. I cant keep up to her in books she reads loads, (i think money is never wasted on buying children books) has a good group of friends, gets lots of excercise . But the computer has been invaluable to her and her siblings. Its just the most fab encyclopedia

• I got it , I just love giving Brad a hard time.....just in my nature....Cheers Brad...J

• I completely agree with you Stari and Tor I'm afraid you have it all wrong. At my school the students are blocked from facebook as we found that a lot of valuable lesson or study time was being wasted by students accessing their pages. There is plenty of time for facebook out of school. Kaymo

• My point was not to blame Facebook, it's problem larger than that. In school we can at least try to prevent bullying but when it comes to FB it's out of our control. I "twit" and I'm on Myspace and I know there will always be assholes out there. But again as Holly wrote "Parents need to harden up, say no and mean it." Maybe for every adult to think about this. It hurts seeing kids with low or no selfconfidence due to "some assholes".

• http://www.cracked.com/article_18982_5-terrifying-online-trends-invented-by-news-media.html I think some of you should read this. It basically makes the point that all of these cases where "Facebook caused this", and "Twitter caused that" is usually nothing of the sort. The kids already knew each other - like in this case - and if the bullying wasn't happening online, it'd be happening in the real world. Contrary to popular belief, social networking is not some terrifying new tool used by people to bully random strangers... it's for networking socially, funnily enough. But any new technology is going to be misused by some assholes, and it's not that technology to blame.

• I'm a teacher too and Facebook is causing more harm than good. Bullying without ramification that's Facebook! Duff - Facebook doesn't remove pages quick enough. Imagine beeing 14 years old with school"friends" who created a page called "everyone who hates ..." It was up for over a week! "Parents need to harden up, say no and mean it." Thanks Holly! Now there is two of us!

• Butt Heads

• Some people won't get that, no matter how hard you try Brad. i liked it! Duff

• 'Eye for an eye' or 'Turn the other cheek' - kinda leaves y' conflicted as a human, eh? That said, I wasn't being serious, which is why I put the 'tongue-n'-cheek' tag! ;)

• Hey Rossetta Welcome...single of the Week I-tunes...hey what you think about that ,,,!

• Holy Brad.....don't give anyone any more of those idea's cause when it happens to you...its unbelievable....! Not the parents fault when you have a bad seed......! Everything is traceable. and in black and white...You just need the right cop , and , the proof is in the pudding, like the butcher , the baker , the candle stick maker, and the three wise men at sea, that decided no more ship water for us , bottle 's to drink , and tons of water for the galley , to cook and wash veggies .....make the kid peel potatoes and do chores, or community service....! Lmao Hey Brad, have a wonderful week....You gotta Move....! or something like that. so much , identity theft....makes you wonder , were the protection really is when your getting hit left right and centre..?

• My cousin came on vacation , married and american from Arizona ( Musician) and stayed... so you know not Quebecois... I am unbent Unfolded Bold Unstapled Unspindled Rekindled unmutilated and unknown Sweetly for what I am unknown Far away from My home Yet not alone Just between me and you..... A fit but pleasant mis fit Tailored yet unmade an unround peg In two-fold -two-tales And have not seen a damn Whale yet , oh Farley Mowat.....! xoxox

• Once you find out whom it is, you will obviously have to destroy his/her parent’s credit score via identity theft! Hit the kid where it hurts - CHRISTMAS! This message was brought to you by: Tongue-n’-Cheek ™

• Towns gearing up for St. Pattys day....whilst walking on my merry way, I stopped to say hello to the new kids in town....even the dog had a collar, Wicked mohawks one side Punks , one side fire trucks and the boys in Yellow....East end...interesting to say the least!

• Excellent , and facebook has ruined many adults as well...When employers peek in as well...!

• Ditto , amazing all the poser's , no creativity I guess. Hey S & S ,,, busy family here, and visiting and catching up....! Were the heck is Shaina Twain, don't you think she should be embraced into a new gendre for holy can anyone possibly copy that ladies style anymore a true pioneer....! You guessed it on a mission...!

• Thanks for your advice Duff. I learnt a lot about facebook and myself whilst trying to track down the child who was posing as my son. Facebook was no help at all. All care but no responsibility. @Tor, you are not a Mum so you may not understand the lioness when someone is hurting your child. Luckily I learnt that after an initial knee-jerk reaction about the little shit, I actually felt sorry for the under-parented, under-supervised child who was missing my son’s company at 11.30pm, so much so that he set up a fictitious page for him. Unfortunately the quality of the interactions between the children on facebook was so inane and puerile, I find little good in them using it. I have taught many of the children who befriended my fake son and after reading their pages they have gone way down in my estimation. But again I have to pity their spoilt, lonely under-parented lives. And I don’t buy the whole reason of children under 13 being signed up so that they can contact friends and family. Pick up the phone!!!! Skype! Email! Send a post card! Have a play date. So anyway, in the end I was able to contact the child asking him to let us know who he was so that my son could have closure, but all he did was shut down the page. I would have loved to have had the chance to talk to his parents. I am resigned to having to live with my suspicions. The school was very helpful. Facebook has always been blocked at the school. They are now about to do a lot more work with the pupils on responsible cyber-safety etc. Thankfully my son does not seem too perturbed by the whole drama. It has been a valuable learning experience for our family. My eldest is on facebook, as am I and we are “friends”. Very strange. @Tor and Stari, I have enjoyed reading your discussion. As a teacher I get the whole digital native thing and I try to work with it. But, children need to be kept as children for as long as possible and facebook is NOT for kids. Parents need to harden up, say no and mean it. Lastly, I highly recommend the book called “It’s A Book” by Lane Smith. %Pr

• 1. You just said it...discussion! Help the students develope themselves as democratic participants through disussion and debate via social networks. This is after all an important forum for current and future democracy. Children should not just acquire knowledge in school. Even more important is to help them to develop as social, democratic human beings in an ever-changing world. 2. Reach out to the students where they are. And that's facebook at this point, not other schoolbased networks such as "fronter", wich is used where I live. 3. Digital competence. Is/gonna be as important as reading/writing/mathematics. One should believe kids are pretty competent with this already, but im suroprised how little many of them knows, apart from playing online-games. 4. Tighter follow-up between teacher-student. 5. Monitoring. If facebook's used in schools, the school will also be competent enough to see if it's used when it's not supposed to be used. I don't have facebook, but I think you can see if contacts are online or not. AND maybe it is easier for kids to be a "snitch" online, or say to the teacher if there is something wrong going on, than it would be to tell him face to face. 6. Guiding kids on "right" use of social networks. Maybe some will think twice before they go on and do something mean, like the story Holly here told. And I would like to add something to what you say about "Technology can be a great resource if it is used for research and instructional development ". This forum right here is neither used for research nor instructional development, but it's a great resource!

• Technology can be a great resource if it is used for research and instructional development (i.e. online classes, lectures, academic debate and discussion)....but I fail to see how allowing school kids access to Facebook and Myspace during school hours provides any intellectual development whatsoever. If you could possibly let me know of an example where a social networking website has helped a child attain knowledge, please share.

• Social networking have Great potential for learning. It can be used in very positive ways in schools. Rather use it active in schools than forbid it. Technology AND society in general move faster forward than the school system. School have to work together with new technology, not against it! That way it can prevent some of the abusive use of the social networks that some children stands for, just cause they don't know any better!

• Definitely report it to Facebook- the age limit for having a profile is 13. They do take things like this very seriously, so it's quite possible that the kid who's doing this may not be able to set up a profile again. I definitely agree with talking to the parents of the kid-hopefully they will take it seriously and not have an apathetic attitude about it. Unless this occurred on the school grounds with the use of school computers, officials at public schools can't really do anything about it. Personally having worked in schools and (currently) in a library, I think that all social networking sites should be blocked from school and library computers for anyone under the age of 18.

• I'm not computer savvy enough to touch on this matter really. I had someone assist me at setting my dorky page up, but I think we should utilize these computers for peace and not bullying, or teasing, or fake identity for that matter. Because it is pretty darn amazing that at all hours of the day we can communicate with peeps across the globe and that is something I refuse to take for granted or to abuse. I think kids should not be so free to be on the computer, they need to be outside making forts, digging in the dirt, stuff like that, with a set time, like only a half an hour or so on facebook and what have you.

• I would also like to suggest to report this to the school and police. Maybe talk to the police together with representations from the school, cause this sounds illegal. That said, I don't think this qualify to call the other kid a "little shit". That's a kind of language that won't contribute to anything good. Not for any of the kids involved!

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