Here is the story of one mother that took to the internet to publicly shame her daughther to teach her a lesson about....publicly shaming. One mother found out her daughter had been cyberbullying peers on the Internet and the following was her response. 

This morning, a young girl is getting a taste of the abuse she was apparently serving up to her classmates, thanks to her innovative mother.

Yesterday, reddit user AngryCOMMguy posted a photo (pictured) of a downtrodden young girl holding up a yellow sign. The young girl - who identifies herself as Hailey - is a cyberbully. At least, according to her mother. Apparently, Hailey's mother discovered that her daughter was abusing fellow students (at least we assume it was fellow students and not just some random people), via the Internet. As a result, Hailey's mom decided the best course of action was to have her daughter sell her beloved iPod and give the proceeds to Beat Bullying, a charity that works to combat bullying in all its forms.

Taking a break from this story, I think it's safe to say that this is a time-tested parental move: if your kid acts like a jerk, you take something away from them. Make them feel the sting of their malfeasance.

Deciding whether your child is ready for Instagram has to be determined on how much knowledge you give them in navigating Instagram's security. When someone posts pictures on Instagram, security features are there, but they can be misleading in how many ways a predator can work around them. Take a look at some of the methods predators can use to look in on your child's photos and how you may have to take individual action to make sure this doesn't happen.

The Problem with Using Fake Names

Your kids have to be educated on how the mind of a predator works. While that might intimidate your child discussing such things, it's a bitter reality they have to learn. One of those is in how predators can so easily create fake accounts and names to gain access to specific accounts.

Twitter is a fast paced, information loaded social networking site that many find to be too much to handle. At the same time, there are others who have adopted the social network as part of their overall usage of the Internet and now say that they are hooked on it. So, you have to ask yourself as part of digital parenting, "Is my child ready for Twitter?". 

Maturity

The maturity level of your child in particular is a large part of the answer about if they are ready for Twitter. Luckily, with Twitter there are not some of the pitfalls that other sites might have which are inappropriate for children. Rather, with Twitter the concern is more about how much time they will spend on it and what kind of things they will say to the public. 

Watch What You Say!

Perhaps the most important part of the Twitter conversation that you have with your children is the part about making sure that they understand that what they say on Twitter is broadcast to the Twitter using world. This can be both very cool, and quite scary at the same time. There is a point at which some of the information that is going out may not be things that should be said at all. Thus, the child needs to have this part understood. 

Cyberbullying continues to become the individual terrorism of the online world without any end in sight. With the U.K.'s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children recently citing some sobering statistics, you can also see how much of a worldwide problem cyberbullying has become. In the NSPCC figures, cyberbullies now target one out of every five children online.

Think your 7th grader isn't sexting? Might be time to think again.

A new study was published online today by the American Academy of Pediatrics about the sexting habits of at-risk seventh graders.

Here are some of the most shocking statistics:

• 22 percent of at-risk seventh graders participated in sexting.

• 17 percent sending texts only.

• 5 percent sending texts and photos.

• Higher perceptions of approval for sexual behavior from parents, peers and the media, higher intentions to engage in sexual behavior, lower emotional awareness, and lower emotional self-efficacy.

In 2011, a fifteen-year-old girl was released from the hospital following a failed suicide attempt. However, when she got out of the hospital, the girls who had been bullying her by using a text bombing website to send her multiple text messages, picked up right where they left off.

Her second suicide attempt was successful.

An important part of parental intelligence is understanding what text bombing is, and how kids are using it to cyberbully and harass each other. With new apps being developed every day, it doesn't matter that the Google App store has banned two of the apps responsible for allowing kids to demonstrate this type of behavior - SMSBomber and SMSBarrage. 

These apps are a new form of cyberbullying and allow kids to download them and then send multiple text messages to the same person. By using the app, a kid can send thousands of different text messages to the same person during the course of the day. Even as an adult, imagine receiving a thousand different text messages from the same place during one day. Perhaps the messages said something like, "Your wife is cheating on you", "I saw her with someone else today", or "Your marriage is over." Even if you feel relatively solid within your marriage, getting so many of those text messages all at once is sure to at least make you doubt the faithfulness of your wife. 

For kids, the feeling is amplified even more.

ICYMI (in case you missed it) there was breaking news on the Snapchat front this week. Here is an article from the Washington Post detailing exactly what happened.

Snapchat users are waking up to troubling news: Thanks to a gap in the service's security, the phone numbers and usernames for as many as 4.6 million accounts have been downloaded by a Web site calling itself SnapchatDB.info.

The following article was originally posted on the Huffington Post by Dr. G. 

Is bullying getting worse? Studies show that more kids and parents are reporting bullying, but even more concerning is higher rates of kids surveyed anonymously say they don't report bullying. The most concerning trend is that kids involved in bullying are more likely than ever to commit suicide. Kids are, as a group, probably no meaner now than in generations past. So what is the problem?

Access.

This article was originally posted on the Huffington Post by Sue Scheff, one of our favorite parenting bloggers. 

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a time when you could power up your electronics -- whether it's your iPad, tablet, PC or cell phone -- and not have to worry about any type of hostile content?

Internet trolls and cyberbullies never take vacations or summer breaks, and they don't recognize holidays.

This holiday season, as cyberbullying and bullying sadly continues, you can give your teens and kids the gift of cyber-armor!

Earlier this month, a 15-year old from St. Petersburg, FL was arrested for sending “hundreds of threatening text messages” over the course of eight days to former friends. Some were even death threats. The suspect used a smartphone app called Kik Messenger, which happens to be the cyberbullying app du jour, also used in the Rebecca Ann Sedwick cyberbullying case that contributed to her suicide. Kik allows users to send text messages from an Internet Desk Top to cell phones.

The tactic is called “text bombing”

The thought of teens and technology makes most parents cringe. But one DC-area tech startup is making it so teens and parents can live in cyber harmony. (We're still not going to "friend" you on Facebook, grandma.) 

This is from one of our favorite Internet safety blogs, The Sue Scheff Blog, and is written by Erin Steiner.

Should you be worried? As a digital parent, the short answer is yes.

For those who haven’t heard, Facebook recently updated its privacy policy for teenage users of the system. Now there is no such thing as “too young to learn about online reputation management.”

Until last week, Facebook automatically made the profiles of users aged 13-17 private and only viewable to friends and friends of friends. Now their profiles are automatically public. That’s right. You’re newly-minted 13-year-old can broadcast his thoughts to the whole world with just the push of a button.

As a parent, how often do you wish that your child had come with an instruction book? Parenting isn’t an easy job. It can involve challenges at any age and leave parents looking for advice and answers for many questions about raising their children.  In the past, many parents relied on their parents, friends and family to help them. However, in the age of digital parenting, parents face many issues that their parents never had to cope with. One of the best resources available to parents today is Pinterest. With an ever growing compilation of boards with information for parents on such topics as bullying, education, digital safety, and more, Pinterest can be a priceless source for digital parenting.  To get you started, here are ten awesome boards for parents on Pinterest. 

1. Parenting Advice - PTPA – with over 75 pins on topics ranging from self-esteem to bullying, this board has advice for parents with kids from birth to teens. They have collected pins from around the web to help parents deal with topics such as divorce, temper-tantrums, and discipline. They also have some interesting pins for dads as well as moms from experts in many fields. 

It is no doubt that the internet has changed the world in ways most of us couldn’t have even seen coming. Young people today find themselves in a world where they are constantly online. Cell phones, Wi-Fi hotspots, and tablets have made being online 24/7 ‘the norm,” making responsible digital parenting more important than ever. According to research, thirty seven percent of Americans aged twelve to seventeen access the Internet on a smartphone and over half are accidentally exposed to inappropriate content. Because of these stats and the prevalence of the internet, it is more important than ever to lay ground rules for your connected kids. 

 During the course of digital parenting, it’s hard for children to understand you’re only concerned for their wellbeing. Most advice you offer seems like it’s completely ignored or seen as a challenge. There are ways to set rules with your children so they understand your concern and don’t see it as an attack. Remember that your own teenage years likely saw you become stubborn as you tried to learn how to make your own choices. Technology may connected kids, but it doesn’t change what being a kid is. While the experience of growing up may be the same, the connected world your kids find themselves in creates new challenges that require hard rules. Here are 6 Internet safety rules for parents of teens and tweens to enforce:

This article was originally posted on the NPR blog "All Tech Considered."

Facebook has rolled out a tool to address online harassment that some digital safety advocates are calling a beneficial, but belated, first step.

The social networking site with 1.2 billion users worldwide released a "bullying prevention hub" this week. It's essentially an online resource center with suggestions for teens, parents and educators on how to address bullying — both online and off — and take action on Facebook.

The site is also beginning to roll out more options for teens to report when posts are making them uncomfortable.

The idea is to build on Facebook's existing tools, says company spokesman Matt Steinfeld.

This article was originally published by the New York Times, Somini Sengupta.

For years, a school principal’s job was to make sure students were not creating a ruckus in the hallways or smoking in the bathroom. Vigilance ended at the schoolhouse gates.

This article was orginally posted on the Huffington Post by Michael Gregg, COO of Superior Solutions.

If you think you're hip to your children's online social habits because you know all about Facebook and Twitter, you've got it all wrong. Tweens and teens are increasingly leaving these sites in favor of new apps that offer richer features and a safe haven from watchful parents.