Q: I found my 14-year-old daughter in tears a few days ago. She had just received a personally demeaning cellphone message from one of her classmates. Apparently she has had other messages, both on her computer and on her phone, but she had not told me about them. I am just sick about it. I want to help her but I feel helpless. What can I do?
A: Education and law enforcement officials across the country are concerned about the cellphone messages our children are sending to each other. This is a huge problem. Surveys tell us that 25 percent of children in both Canada and the United Kingdom who use either cellphones or the internet have received hateful messages.
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You can go to the police and you can ask school administrators to talk to those who are abusing her. But they are limited in what they can do.
Your best option is to work with your daughter and encourage her to practise self-discipline on her cellphone and computer. She should, for example, never open a message unless it is from someone whom she knows and trusts. This will be hard for her to do, and you may have to help her, but if she ignores the other messages, they will eventually go away.
You might also help your daughter by restricting her use of the cellphone to certain times and places. Cellphones can be addictive, governing the lives of those who use them. But with restrictions, your daughter will learn that she is the master of the cell. She will not become dependent on it for her own self-esteem.
You also want to make sure that the messages your daughter sends are acceptable.
Unfortunately, cellphones often appear to encourage poor behav-iour. Your daughter might tell you that her messages are not demeaning, but you still need to check them, if only to let her know that she is not in this thing alone. On the cellphone she represents your household, and that bears with it more responsibility than is recognized.
I see people everywhere treating cellphones and computers with the same dignity otherwise reserved for life-support systems. It’s strange that less than 20 years ago we managed to survive without them.
But cellphones are here to stay, and given respect and responsibility, they can be wonderful assets to our lives.
If parents help their children control their cellphones, the disrespect inherent to cyberabuse might be reduced.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
