On average, how much would you say your teen goes online? Checks their Facebook? Sends text messages? If you're like most parents, you greatly underestimate both the time and the intensity with which your teen is involved with the Internet and mobile devices. Parental monitoring is important, if for no other reason than to have an accurate picture of what your kids are doing online, and how much they're doing it.

When my children were small, I knew everything they did, every television show they watched, every friend they had. If they wanted a snack from the cupboard or a new toy from the store, they had to go through me. I was in complete control. 

Maybe you don't know what a “dumb phone” is, but your teens certainly do – and they don't want one.

One of my closest girlfriends hasn't upgraded to a smart phone yet: her trusty old flip phone serves her just fine. She does find herself several times a day, however, constantly apologizing for her lack of connectivity.

If we're in a group and someone says, “quick, grab your phone and take a picture!” or “get on Facebook to show me some pictures of your new niece,” she has to shrug and say, “Sorry, I can't. I have a dumb phone.”

Most of us think of parental monitoring in terms of protecting your child from bullying and predators, or maybe just protecting them from posting an inappropriate picture on a whim that could haunt them for years. Of course it does all those things, but simply knowing where our kids are online can clue us in on what's going on in their life.

Just by checking the Internet history on my home computer I know what news stories my husband is interested in and what projects my kids are working on in school. Did you know that just looking at the sites your kids have visited in the last few days and weeks can also give you a pretty good picture of what their life looks like right now?

The media loves the phrase 'bullycide,' and the kids like Phoebe Prince who take their lives in the wake of cyberbullying are never far from the thoughts of parents. But are we doing our kids a disservice by stressing the link between cyberbullying and suicide. 

When I picked up my friend's 10-year-old daughter Gabby for art class last spring, I asked her how her day had gone. “Good,” she said. “A guy came to our school and told us about his son, who killed himself because he was bullied.”

Out of every one hundred tweens and teens, how many do you think are cyberbullied? Twenty? Forty? Sixty? Actually, new research suggests that the actual figure may be much lower than we think. 

A new presentation of the results of two studies to the American Psychological Association this week shows that only 15% of kids were actually cyberbullied. The two studies surveyed a total of 5,000 teens.

Most of you reading this will think this is an impossibly low figure. We hear about cyberbullying every single day. It is all over our schools and in the news. How can a 15% figure be realistic at all?

Tweet Tweet! It’s that time again…Twitter party time! We are happy to announce that our next party is this Thursday August 23 at 3PM EST.  The entire hour is going to be dedicated to cyberbullying due to the number of Olympic athletes that were bullied in London. Our hosts @timwoda and @stevewoda will be offering helpful tips to parents to ensure child safety this year and are available to answer questions.

It's the end of August, and back to school time is approaching once again. Whether your kids are dreading waking up early to catch the school bus or chomping at the bit to get back, it's time to say goodbye to summer vacation. The new backpacks, new clothes, and new graphing calculators are already bought and waiting. Back to school time is exciting, and it's also a great time to have a refresher course with your teen about Internet safety. 

SWAT-ting is a new trend that everyone is talking about. It also happens to be a nightmare for police departments around the nation.  SWAT-ting is an attempt to fool an emergency service into dispatching an emergency response team. The callers use services like Spoofcard to disguise the origin of the prank call, change their voices and add background sound effects. 

With the school year just around the corner, parents are busy getting ready. There are school clothes to buy, new backpacks to fill – but are also you taking the time to bully-proof your child?

Cyberbullying is present in any school: public or private, rural or urban, high school or elementary school. Help to avoid or lessen the impact of cyberbullying on your child with these 10 skills. 

1. Confidence. Identifying and being proud of his personal strengths will give your child a good feeling about himself that will make bullies less likely to target him.

British Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington is swearing off Twitter during this year's London Olympics because she “doesn't need the stress” of people who post rude, insensitive, or cyberbullying comments.

In her own words, Adlington describes how “most things that I read about myself are not swimming related. They are to do with how I look, which has nothing to do with my performance in the pool.” 

She enjoys the supportive messages, but the inevitable odd comments makes the whole Twitter scene not worth it for her when she needs to focus 100% on her swimming in the Olympic games.

Anybody can be the victim of a cyberbullying. Even an Olympic athlete.

Eighteen-year-old Zoe Smith's Olympic event hasn't occurred yet, but a handful of cyberbullying comments on Twitter put her in the spotlight recently. 

A Twitter user going by the name of Infidel1978 sent cyberbullying messages to the teen Olympic weightlifter and some of her teammates after they were featured in a BBC documentary called “Girl Power: Going for the Gold.”

Celebrities often get involved in causes, and perhaps no cause is more worthy than ending cyberbullying.

Olypmic Taekwondo coach Jean Lopez and his Olympic medal-winning siblings recently paired up with the organization Youth Aid to raise money for anti-bullying education in an event called “A Night with Olympic Champions.”

Like other anti-bullying programs, Youth Aid believes that education can help empower bullied kids and teach bullies to avoid the behavior.

Do you know what your school's policy is on bullying? Every school has one, but policies vary from district to district in how cyberbullying is defined and how it is punished.

Although there are almost as many types of policies as there are schools, a popular one is the zero tolerance policy. “Zero tolerance” means that any and all violations of the policy is grounds for the harshest punishments a school can dole out: namely suspension and expulsion. 

Zero tolerance policies used to be reserved for bringing drugs or weapons to school, two offenses that require the removal of the offending student because he or she is endangering the whole student body.

Children in today’s society have a lot of pressure on them and are having to grow up too quickly.  It’s unfortunate that they can’t enjoy their childhood without being pressured into doing things they normally wouldn’t do.  When I was growing up, I of course had peer pressure but a different kind than kids have today. 

Cyberbullying is using the Internet to harm, threaten, harass, or humiliate others. It can be over social networks, email, texting, or elsewhere online. Cyberbullying is a significant part of many of our kids' lives and has a seriously detrimental impact on their emotional and mental health.

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has become an increasingly popular social networking site.  It is used in almost every country and is currently available in 20 languages.  If used properly, it is a great networking tool that can be quite helpful.  Twitter allows celebrities and “regular” people to interact with one another, businesses to make announcements to the public, and friends to chat with one another. I would like to emphasize the word “properly” because many people don’t.  Sadly, it has become another conduit for teens to bully each other. 

Due to the emotional and impulsive nature of teenagers today, many fail to understand that when they publish something on twitter it’s out there and can’t be taken back. I know you might be thinking how much damage can 140 characters really do? The answer is a lot of damage! Teen suicide is becoming a major issue because of cyberbullying.

Bullying someone in person is soooo 20th century. Cyberbullying is the new way for tweens and teens to bully, and it differs from traditional schoolyard bullying in significant ways.

Most of us know about schoolyard bullying, and have probably seen it for ourselves at some point during our journey through adolescence. Someone might have spread a dirty rumor about a classmate in the hallways at school or scrawled “For a good time call Kathy” on the inside of a bathroom stall with a Sharpie.

But cyberbullying is very different from the kind of bullying we know, for three reasons: 

1. 24/7 access. The Internet never sleeps. Cyberbullied kids live in a plugged-in world where they feel trapped and desperate because they can't escape from harassing emails, text messages, or Wall posts. They are always aware of them.

Online reputation is everything to teens, especially when their social lives exist almost entirely online. Much of what teens do and say online is guided by their need for acceptance among their classmates and other peers.  But with the ever-changing nature of the Internet, what happens when a teen’s reputation gets away from them and seems to take on a life of its’ own?

Without proper management, just a few simple mistakes posted online could follow your teen years down the road, and even affect potential employment opportunities.  While there are many things you and your teen can do to keep their online name in good standing, here are the top three things we think are important: