Do you think a cyberbully is a terrible person whose sole goal in life is to make others miserable? If only it were so cut and dry.

Actually, there are lots of ways to bully someone online, and plenty of “good” kids exhibit cyberbullying behavior from time to time without realizing what they're really doing. Some studies on cyberbullying report that as many as 1 in 5 of their respondents admit to some form of cyberbullying

Does your child know that the following behaviors all qualify as cyberbullying

Spreading rumors about someone online

• Directing derogatory language or slurs at someone

We hear a lot about Facebook for kids and age these days. Mark Zuckerburg himself has said that he thinks the age minimum of 13 should be lifted. And plenty of kids as young as 9 and 10 are on Facebook nothwithstanding the age minimum, some of them with mom and dad's full approval.

 But here are 10 safety reasons that your preteen should not be on Facebook:

1. Helping your preteen create a Facebook account is helping them lie about their age to skirt the 13-year-old age minimum. Not only are you teaching your child that you think it's okay to fudge the truth sometimes, you're setting a dangerous precedent that if you think you know better than the rule, you can break it.

At this week's book club meeting, the parents in the room were bemoaning how much our teenagers text. For those of us who are used to using the good old landline phone (bonus points if yours was not cordless), it can almost seem ridiculous. New dangers and scares for parents include sexting, cyberbullying, and everything in between.

One of the moms exclaimed. “My daughter will spend half an hour texting her friends back and forth to coordinate a school project when a 5-minute phone call would clear everything right up!” Our kids just text a lot – some statistics say that the average teen sends and receives over 3,000 texts per month.

Do you feel that your teen is truly texting too much? It can be hard to get perspective on what's normal for a teen, since we didn't grow up with the option of texting anytime, anywhere. Try talking to other parents to get a feel for what's normal for your child and her peers.

Recently I was at a dinner party with several parents. A few of us at the party have a child entering those first phases of being aware and using the web. We all began sharing stories of various funny episodes with our kids. One of the mothers suggested that we listen to a voicemail on her phone. As the voicemail started, it was her son. He is approximately eight years old, very bright and a nice boy. The boy begins to tell his mother that he had just won a free iPad online. He apparently had gotten hold of the iPad while she was gone and was surfing the net. I took a deep breath and thought, "uh oh."

Cell phones keep us connected. They're convenient, save us time, and could even save our lives in a true emergency. But when used irresponsibly, mobile phones can wreak havoc. And it appears that technology is blurring the line between right and wrong – for our kids, anyway.

One study from Common Sense Media reports that 1 in 3 kids use their cell phones to cheat on tests, but that 1 in 4 kids surveyed didn't think that accessing notes during a test, texting friends with answers during a test, or using their cell to search the Internet for answers is cheating.

The incidence of plagiarism, the other bane of a teacher's existence, has skyrocketed since the advent of the Internet. How much easier is it to cut and paste blocks of text, maybe even mixing them up a bit to make the work appear original, than to painstakingly transcribe words from a copyrighted book or magazine article?

Every year, during the fourth week of January, hundreds of schools across the country participate in No Name-Calling Week to encourage the fight against bullying and cyberbullying. During this week, schools plan activities and events aimed at ending verbal bullying and name-calling.

At Mabel Wilson Elementary School of Cumberland, Maine the national No Name-Calling Week included several activities to highlight positive ways children can help stop bullying.

Maybe it's just the parent in me, but when I hear the words “social networking” and “kids” in the same sentence I get a little tense worrying about my kids safety. There are so many things we need to worry about when our kids start using Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter: cyberbullies, online predators, sexting, loss of privacy – the list goes on. But don't forget that social networks can be a great way for our tweens and teens to get involved in good causes, spend their time productively, and do their own small part to make the world a better place.

Given the number of teens participating in a sexting incident – approximately 25% by the time they leave high school – sexting is every bit the plague-like phenomenon the media makes it out to be. Sexting is the taking and sending of racy pictures or sending racy texts to someone else. For those of us parents who didn't grow up with camera phones, the biggest question about sexting might be: Why?

There are many reasons why kids sext each other. They might do it to get attention, to flirt, as a thoughtless impulse, or even as a joke.

Thanks to the Internet, information is easier to get than ever. Kids can get online to do their homework, learn how to apply to college, or find out how long it takes Saturn to make a revolution around the sun.

Of course, when information is so easy to get it can be a little scary. Try Googling a phrase like “how to kill yourself,” “homemade bomb instructions,” or “play the choking game” and you’ll find a scary assortment of search results.

Do you know how much texting and social networking your teen is doing? You may want to sit up and play closer attention to how your child communicates online – not just looking for “red flags,” but at the overall amount of time they spend doing it.

Researchers from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine found that excessive texters and social networkers were more likely to drink, do drugs, and be sexually active.

According to the study, teens who sent more than 120 texts per school day were:

• 3.5 times more likely to have had sex

• 90% more likely to report four or more sexual partners

• twice as likely to have tried alcohol

Facebook seems to have more of an interest these days in keeping its users, particularly children and teens, safe from social networking dangers such as cyberbullying and child predators.

In April a revamped Safety Center appeared on Facebook, with targeted safety information for parents, educators, teens, and law enforcement.

After the Facebook-related deaths of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall in March and 18-year-old Nona Belomisoff in May,

Sexting. To a parent’s ears, even the name is scary. Here are some of the straight facts about sexting, who is doing it, and why. And most importantly, how to talk to your kids about why it can be dangerous.

Sexting is using mobile technology to send a suggestive nude or semi-nude picture of oneself to someone else. It’s been around since about 15 minutes after the invention of the camera phone and the text message, but has gotten much more prevalent in recent years now that so many teens and tweens carry around their own personal cell phones.

The cyberbullying-induced suicide of Massachusetts teen Phoebe Prince in March put cyberbullying back in the spotlight. Parents need to talk to their kids, not only about what to do if they are cyberbullied themselves but also how to stop it from happening to their peers and how to avoid becoming cyberbullies themselves.

Cyberbullying is any form of harassment, humiliation, or abuse that takes place using technology and Internet connectivity. It can, and often does, start with seemingly innocuous things like fowarding an embarrassing picture of a classmate or leaving an off-the-cuff mean comment on someone’s Facebook Wall. It can escalate to more serious offenses like impersonating someone else on the Internet or setting up a website designed to make fun of them.