[scraphappen]

Well a few months back I let my 10 year old start a blog. I told her to be careful who she gave the address to. Well I guess she had it on her MSN which I thought was ok because that was just her circle of friends. Well now someone has gone on and "pretended" to be another girl,which doens't even have internet at home. And said some foul words about another girl. then in other comments made fun of the school, thier teacher and other girls.
I feel bad for my daughter because that isn't what she had in mind for her blog at all. Now she feels bad because these kids are writing bad things.
I feel bad for her because she hasn't written any of this but getting blamed for having the blog. If you saw the site she last wrote what would be good ideas for halloween costumes.
I thought I would take down the site but there were more comments last night. So I'm trying to figure out who is saying this but not letting my daughter on her blog anylonger.

Has anyone else gone through this?? I feel so useless. I tried to make my daughter understand she wans't to blame but I could tell she felt bad about the whole thing.

[ChristinaP]

I feel so bad for your daughter, I can see why she feels it's her fault. Can't she make the comments by approval only? I know that won't change what has happened, but could stop it from continuing. Kids can be so cruel, and I don't think they even realize the damage they cause. They just think it's a funny joke. My kids are to little for this right now, but I'm not looking forward to the day it happens with them.

[scraphappen]

I have been, "manning" the blog. I will have to see if that is an option. I have a feeling of who it is. But I want to see if something will give them away. I know it has to be someone from her school. Maybe even her class.
But never thought of preapproval that's a good one.

[cyndisa]

Wow. You hear about this happening so much now-a-days. I don't have any advice - sorry! But I'll be praying for you and your daughter.

[SilverSwanMama]

You definitely should be able to moderate your comments. It's just a matter of setting it for that. I know that blogger has that option. It is a good idea to always do that because not only can things like this happen, but spammers can spam your comments section with those dreaded advertisements for some drug or other things that are not so tame. If you have your blog set so that you have to approve comments, you can avoid the spammers, too.

So sorry this has happened. There's always someone who wants to ruin an otherwise good thing.
Good luck!

[sheilaj]

(((hugs))) its one of the new bad things that can happen to good people. You have already had great advice. I hope that you and your daughter won't be permanently put off blogging by this.

[Ro]

That's what I would suggest, as well. Have her delete the bad comments and then put the comments on moderation only. Then they won't ever show up in her blog.

[elibar]

Funny, I just heard a story about this on NPR, a show out of Philly called "Voices in the Family" where a girl actually committed suicide after cyber bullying. I didn't hear all of it, but I'm sure it had some good resources:

Please visit the site whyy fm voices in the family and you can listen to the program and see the resources.

[LisaL]

I just started a blog and you can change the settings for the comments. If you have trouble PM me and I bet we can figure it out one way or another. Sorry this is happening!

[needadietcoke]

How sad. What are we coming to? Definitely go for moderation- that gives you a measure of security.

[debubbie]

I hate to hear that this is happening to your daughter. You may want to talk to the teacher and the principal at the school so they are aware of the problem. It is nice to have a heads up on possible situations, plus the teacher may help you figure out who it is. Some schools have a zero tolerance policy on cyber bullying and if the girl is using a school computer for the bullying then they can step in to handle the problem and discuss the harassment with the parents.

We had an incident at school where some kids hacked a girls myspace page and pasted her head on a nude body and changed her profile info to include her phone number and street address and her sexual preferences. They knew something was up when they started to get all of these phone calls. The girl behind it went on administrative homebound and couldn't play sports or participate in any school activities. It was a mess.

It is a good that you are trying to step in and take care of this and find out who is creating the problem. Let your daughter know that she did nothing wrong and she should try to enjoy her blog with kids that can handle the responsibility. Also let her know that she did right by letting you know about the problem and that she is the better person by not joining in with the other girls' cruelty.

[Burnsie]

I'm sorry this is happening to your daughter. Isn't it amazing that people have enough gumption to do these things behind the anonymity of their computer, but are too cowardly to own up to it in person?

[Witchie Pooh]

[How sad for your daughter. It is such a shame that other children have to be so darn mean. In time she will understand that she is not responsible for what these other kids are doing, but it is such a hard lesson to learn. If you can catch the other person who is doing this and find out that they used the school computers to write this junk, the school should be able to take action against that student.
I am not a big fan of these types of sites. When my son was 10 his cousin talked him into lying about his age so he could start a My Space account. Months later some boy's showed up at our house and beat my son up for something he supposedly wrote. I get in the car call 911 follow the boys to a convenience store until the police arrived. One of the boys goes on and on about the bad things my son wrote about him and I asked him if he read it, he said no but the other boy with him told him all about it. The police talked real tough to the boys and sacred them, both were white as sheets when the police finally let them go. I went home looked on the site and the only thing my son had said was “I’m glad he’s moving. I really don’t like him” and that was it. I reported my son as an underage user and let them know that I expected his account to be closed. I also had a very heated phone conversation with my Sister-In-Law about her son and influencing my son to lie about his age. Needless to say I don’t have very good feelings about these sites.