Hi I’m Chelsea! I’m married to my eternal partner in life, a co-pilot of chaos, I mean mom of 3 kids under 6, and the unofficial second mom to our neighborhood teens. We love dance parties, movies, ice cream, living outside and raising empowered kids!! I have spent the last decade working as a private certified cyber security consultant helping businesses and parents secure their environments. Two years ago I took my skills public to help parents have the tech tools they need to enhance their parenting abilities and build relationships with their children that last beyond childhood.
I didn’t ever think I would be teaching instead of hacking and making security systems better. But the skills I’ve learned are too important for parents to not know. Just this past month we did a huge campaign against bullying giving parents real tech tools to prevent cyberbullying.
I was in high school, unable to keep my friends and family members safe from the “mean kids” in their lives.
I wasn’t able to stop the girls at church from gossiping and spreading nasty rumors about my friend because the popular guy liked her.
I wasn’t able to help my sister who poured her heart out in confidence on the phone to a friend that ended up being a room full of girls on a three way call.
I didn’t know what to say to stop my church leaders from talking about my mother behind her back and condemning her behavior openly to others.
I didn’t know how to help my friend that had a girl accuse him of horrible things because he wouldn’t go on a date with her.
I wasn’t able to stop the boys from pretending to be someone else and email the girl they knew liked them and share her emails and texts with the whole school.
After it happened to my daughter in school, I decided enough was enough and put together a campaign #ParentsPreventingBullying with the soul purpose to Provide Parents with Real Tech Tools To Prevent Cyberbullying #CyberSecurity4Parents . It ran this past month and the results from families have been incredible. I want to share some of the tools I taught parents to do specifically with cyberbullying that are not on any bullying sites I’ve seen.
Photo from pixabay
1. Know The Legal Line
The most important thing with bullying is knowing where the legal line is. Cyberbullying easily transcends into online harassment (cyberstalking or cyber harassment) when it starts to get violent in nature threatening a person’s well-being and affecting their mental health. If materials that are graphic and sensitive in nature have been shared and are threatening to be released to the internet, that’s sextortion and holds some serious criminal actions even for children under 18. Websites, videos and any other media that is published in the name of someone else can be claimed in defamation of character. Many parents are just told to document and block the bully, but they don’t know what to do with the documentation. This is why these sites recommend keeping these items. Be careful with images of a sexual nature because storing those can also put YOU at risk of criminal charges.
Also, almost every social media site tracks and stores your data. You can request this information to be downloaded to your phone to be able to help track the evidence in these legal cases.
2. White List People
Every phone has the option to turn on “Do Not Disturb” and block phone calls from people that aren’t in your contacts. Why would you do this instead of just blocking the bully? I have seen children use things like Google Phones to create multiple phone numbers to call, text and otherwise harass their targets. Some phone companies also have a limit on the number of numbers you can block so this is a great tool when there are hundreds of them.
You can also do this for social media accounts by making them private. Many of the popular ones adults use even have the option to filter and block comments and turn off message requests. Enabling each of these features allows your child to more safely use the platform without being worried about targets. You can learn more specific step-by-step details on our site at http://www.digitalmomtalk.com/cyber-
3. Don’t Share Information With Friends You Don’t Want the World To Know
Parents, relatives and family members of children who are being bullied don’t understand the lengths some kids will go to be mean to another person. The simple pictures we post can be photoshopped and placed in all kinds of things-in your child’s name. This is not only embarrassing, but can lead to devastating incidents later in your child’s life as well. The internet is not a forgiving place and we must be so careful. I have seen private accounts have their pictures leaked and it’s devastating. Even being friends with children’s parents online can be dangerous. I had one child talk to me about kids memorizing and reciting social media status on Twitter and Instagram. It doesn’t seam like a big deal, until these kids start quoting your mom’s post talking about how annoying her kids are for not doing their chores. This can happen for kids who don’t even have social media. We must be so careful with what we share online.
It’s also important to make sure that we are making our lives a safe place. When we constantly check-in or post our schedule to other online kids use this information to suddenly arrive or plan to “just be there” to intimidate our children. Cyberstalking can take on a whole new meaning when our children don’t feel safe in our own presence because their bully can use this later to find them.
I hope this helps other moms out there realize that there is so much more that we can do to protect ourselves and others for bullies online. We have the power to stand as #ParentsPreventingBullying in every way.
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Danielle is the owner of Today's the Best Day. She strives to provide creative and uplifting content in order to enrich the parenting experience for women everywhere. Danielle hopes to help you and your family to make every day the best day! 
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