Has Formspring become a topic of daily conversation in your house? Or, more likely, you may have heard your teen saying “Formspring” and had no clue what they were talking about.

The idea of Formspring is simple enough. It's a fun, social forum where people ask and answer questions. You can ask one person, a group, or everyone on Formspring.

Questions you might see can be silly (“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”) or thought-provoking (“Do you think you can love someone who is fundamentally different from you?”) Teens  also use Formspring to take the temperature of what's normal with their peers (“Do you get along with your parents?”)

When your children are old enough to carry their own cell phones, you can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Now you have a way to get in touch with them wherever they are. They can call or text you if they need you. But sometimes, sexting and texting can make the cell phone a double-edged sword.

Do you let your kids take their phone to a party, especially sleepovers?

Today's cell phones are tiny supercomputers that require just as much parental monitoring as laptops and desktops. Here are 4 things you should be aware of when monitoring your child's cell phone.

1. Texting

Texting sure is a handy way to exchange quick messages with your child when you're running late or want to remind them of something, but texting has the potential to get kids in a lot of trouble. Texts are easily forwarded, and whatever kids text could end up in the whole school's inbox the next day.

It's also easy to misread someone's intentions in a text message. The anonymity of texting also makes it easier for a child to slip into cyberbullying and rude behavior. While you're talking about sexting, make it clear that there are certain times when texting should be off-limits (in class, for example.)

With the sprawling number of cyberbullying, sexting, and faculty/predator scandals of late the Arlington County School Board is Considering a Social Media Policy applying to teachers and staff. As reported by Whitney Wild of WJLA below: 

"In the wake of scandals involving inappropriate student-teacher conduct, Arlington public schools are re-evaluating how teachers can use social media to interact with students.

It's easy to focus on the desktop or laptop computer in our child's life and forget that the Internet is just as accessible from the cell phone hidden in their pocket. Previously we mentioned 4 reasons to monitor your child´s cell phone.  Internet dangers don't become less prevalent or less serious because our kids are on a phone instead of a computer.

This week, take some time to evaluate whether you're allowing things on the smartphone that you wouldn't on the Internet, or vice versa. It's the same Internet, and the same rules should apply no matter how your child is accessing it.

If you've got a teenager with a phone, do you talk about how they're using it to go online? If you are guilty of monitoring computer usage more than phone usage, you're not alone.

“Is it spying or is it good parenting when parents closely monitor teens’ online activity?” asks Tony Anscombe. “Parenting teens that have grown up alongside the Internet and with mobile phones in hand requires an entirely new set of rules and tactics.  Our research reveals that while parents trust their teens to do the right thing, such as avoiding pornography on the Internet and 'sexting,' they are still concerned about their children’s safety and how teens’ online behavior may affect their future careers."

Forty percent of American parents worry the content their children post to Facebook and other social networks will affect their children’s job prospects down the road. Adding to this stress, less than 50 percent of American parents feel their child’s school is doing a good job preparing their students for the online world. They aren’t alone in their concerns. Digital Coming of Age found that nearly half of all parents around the globe felt that schools were not effective in teaching their teens to responsibly use the Internet.

For generations, parents have been suspicious of teens’ social activities – and have employed any number of tactics to uncover the truth. Today’s parents are no exception; they simply have more channels to monitor. The fifth Digital Diaries installment conducted by AVG Technologies revealed that 60 percent of American parents surveyed admit to accessing teens’ Facebook accounts without their knowledge, with moms most likely to be the guilty party.

NEW PHILADELPHIA — The Tuscarawas County Public Library-New Philadelphia will offer cyberbullying prevention programs for youth and parents on Friday, May 11 and Saturday, May 12.

Apparently, parents aren’t the only ones addicted to spying on their kids. Worried about cyberbullying and facebook bullying Clayton High School principal Louise Losos came up with what she thought was a clever idea for keeping an eye on the students at her Missouri school. She allegedly created a Facebook account for a “Suzy Harriston” with a generic profile photo of a group of penguins. “Suzy” friended about 300 people before someone outed her:

"No one seemed to question who Harriston was. That is, until the night of April 5, when a 2011 grad and former Clayton quarterback posted a public accusation. “Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them. It is the Clayton Principal,” wrote Chase Haslett. And then, Suzy Harriston disappeared, say those who saw the profile." via Clayton High’s principal resigns amid Facebook mystery.

What? My child? A cyberbully? Never...

It's easier to believe that your tween or teen could be a victim of cyberbullying than to believe that they could actually be engaging in cyberbullying behavior.

But statistics show that cyberbullied children are also likely to be cyberbullies themselves, at least some of the time. It may be in order to get revenge or completely unintentional. Kids may not even realize that some of the 10 behaviors below are actually forms of cyberbullying:

• Forwarding personal texts or photos. Sending on a sext or a private IM conversation is mean, and it could get a child in deep trouble or even suspended from school.

• Impersonating someone else online. Cyberbullies might post as if they were another person, creating a screen name similar to theirs or actually hacking into their account and pretending to be them.

Cyberbullying is one of parents' top concerns for their children's health and safety, and it's one of the most common dangers for young people online. And certain kids, namely those with disabilities, are more at risk for cyberbullying than others.

Most kids won't pick on the child with a physical handicap, but children with “invisible” disabilities such as Asperger's, autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities, ADD and ADHD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying. What's more, these children may not even realize that they are being bullied or taken advantage of.

I make conscious decisions about my kids' screen time. I know it's not good for them to be sitting still for too long (they are kids, after all) and they need to be active and get outside. They need to have face-to-face contact in addition to instant messaging. And it's bad for their health.

Childhood obesity isn't the only health risk for kids who sit at the computer too much. They could develop carpal tunnel syndrome from overusing the mouse and keyboard, or even computer vision syndrome (a term that didn't exist until the 21^st century) from staring at the screen for too long.

When I was growing up, the term “screen time” hadn't made its debut in the parenting expert arena. My parents needed to set limits on our TV time, and that was about where it ended. Of course we have a lot of other screens we need to worry about now, and they seem to be even more addictive than the television.

I know that my own kids are much more drawn to playing Angry Birds on their Android phone than watching The Disney Channel, and the teenagers I know are spending most of their time on Facebook instead of MTV.

This article was written by Heather Campobello from WebProNews.

A startling new study finds that kids are at risk for sexting, cyberbullying, and more at a much younger age than originally thought. A new study surveyed 20,766 children from grades 3-12 in Massachusetts. The findings are from a self-report so children may not

The recent buzz in the media is about the new movie BULLY. After failing to lower its rating from R to PG-13 the film is being released without a rating.

I have a weak stomach when it comes to watching kid-on-kid cruelty so I doubt I could make it through the film even if I wanted to see it, but BULLY is intensifying the ongoing national conversation on bullying and cyberbullying.

BULLY follows the lives of 5 kids throughout the 2009-2010 school year: 12-year old Alex, 16-year-old Kelby, 14-year-old Ja'meya, 17-year-old Tyler Long, and 11-year-old Ty Smalley. Both Tyler and Ty had committed suicide, so their stories are told by their parents.

Did you know that April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month?

Internet child abuse is disturbingly common and often happens right under a parent's nose. One in five children are sexually solicited online every year, and only one-fourth of them told a parent. When a predator targets a child, they usually spend several weeks or months gaining the child's trust before any real-life abuse occurs.

In honor of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, recommit to protecting your own child, grandchildren, or students by reviewing these 11 signs that your child may be involved with a dangerous person online:

1. Unfamiliar friends on their social networking buddy list

2. Unfamiliar contacts in their cell phone

3. Pornography, especially child pornography, appears for the first time on their phone or computer