M4 Discussion: Cyber Abuse Response

Please comment/reply on all 4 classmates posts. Please use this textbook as your main source: Gosselin, D. K. (2019). Family and intimate partner violence: Heavy hands. 1.Alyssa Davis posted: Cyber dating abuse falls under the umbrella of emotional abuse where one partner uses controlling behaviors to elicit an emotional response from the other such as embarrassment or humiliation. Some examples of cyber dating abuse include monitoring a partner’s activity through review of call history, or reading text conversations, sending threats through text whether physical threat or verbally threatening, posting embarrassing photos, exchanging photos with others without consent, and unwanted sexting (Peskin et al., 2016). As cyber dating abuse is more prevalent in adolescents, one correlate of cyber dating abuse is cyberbullying. One study sampled 800 middle school students and found that bullying had a high correlation rate for bullying and all teen dating violence, and those who perpetrated or experienced cyberbullying were more likely to perpetrate or experience cyber dating abuse (Yahner et al., 2014). Being a young teen is hard, there is already bullying and frustration, and now the world can bear witness. With the rise of technology has come social media platforms and consequently the ability to comment on other people’s posts. People often feel more confident commenting negatively on other people’s posts or bullying when they are not face to face, and this can be seen with teens as well. Where they used to bully in school face to face, they can now bully each other on social media. Bullying prevention and cyberbullying prevention programs have started to become the norm as school programs. Considering adolescents spend most of their time in schools, I think utilizing school programs benefits those individuals in particular that may not have involved parents. In general, I think it’s important that we teach children better life skills such as communication, coping strategies, and problem solving. Being able to cope effectively helps promote confidence and self-esteem, and having self-esteem helps us set healthy boundaries and make decisions that benefit ourselves rather than harm ourselves. Teaching healthy boundaries, and what healthy/unhealthy relationships may look like could help certain students from entering an unhealthy relationship. It was noted that cyber dating abuse is more prevalent in girls due to the anxiety of waiting for responses (Peskin et al., 2016). Another good skill to teach would be what emotional dysregulation looks like, and strategies to re-regulate the system. Something like this would also make a great after-school workshop for children and parents to attend together for parents who are involved, with exercises that promote their relationship health as well. 2.Amber Flint posted: The correlate that I would chose an intervention for would be norms for violence for boys against girls. From much of the reading I've done so far this week, it seems as though females are more likely to be the victims in adolescent relationship violence which leads me to believe the results would be similar with cyber violence. By reducing violence norms for younger adolescents, I feel that this would significantly decrease the desire for young adolescents to participate in cyber dating abuse. I think it would be most beneficial to implement a program in schools that would create new and more positive norms that reject violent behavior in general as well as in a cyber setting. Gender-based norms and associated behaviors increase the risk for young women to experience cyber dating abuse placing value on early intervention and preventative measures such as teaching adolescents of respectful relationships, informed consent in relationships, and spreading knowledge of violence and abuse occurring online (Afrouz & Vassos, 2024). By creating a greater awareness for cyber abuse and making attempts at changing norms for violence for boys against girls, I think this would positively effect adolescents early on and have a lasting impact through adulthood. 3. Clarence White posted This page automatically marks posts as read as you scroll.Adjust automatic marking as read setting What seeds are planted in which would make a seventh-grade male what to abuse another seventh grader via cyberspace? The reading states anger is one of the leading causes amongst our youth for cyber abuse, as youth get older peer pressure is a leading factor in cyber abuse. Cyber pornography at least 34% of youth have reported being exposed to sexual content online. Messaging and texting are the ways our youth are building and maintaining relationships with each other and eventually there will be troubling and nonconsensual exchanges amongst them. About 60% of girls and 59% of boys have experienced some form of cyber abuse, parents worry about their children getting abused online and some parents feel like they can teach their children about acceptable online behavior, everything reverts to the child’s home. Interventions can include a form of educational program at the child’s school, Group sessions ran by the clinical staff, emotional support, and problem-solving skills. Other forms of intervention keep the family computer in a viewable place, tell the children we as parents may need to review their online communications, maybe think about a parent child online contract, install parental controls, teach the child online etiquette, and pay attention to the warning signs if your child is showing forms of being cyber abused. 4.Amber Dixon posted Bullying is just one of many correlates of perpetration of cyber dating abuse among young adolescents. I chose to create an intervention for this correlate as bullying is already a major issue with many negative consequences and has been found to be a factor in the perpetration of cyber dating abuse. A study highlighted in the text found that among high school students, more than 26% of students were victims of cyber dating abuse and in a more recent study one in four high school students experienced it (Gosselin, 2019). There are many programs in schools to help prevent cyber dating abuse such as The Safe Dates Project, Dating Matters, and Futures Without Violence. Programs like these aim to teach youth what healthy relationships look like and how to have both safe and healthy relationships. Dating Matters uses “interactive lessons on understanding feelings, healthy communication, unhealthy and unsafe relationships, and other topics” (Fast Facts: Preventing Teen Dating Violence, 2023). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, research has shown that Dating Matters can reduce the risk of dating violence exposure in middle school students. According to an article published by the National Library of Medicine, successful interventions need to “reinforce positive values in school age children to reduce the number of cyberbullying perpetrators” (Kumar & Goldstein, 2020). This same article reports that studies have found interventions that focus on enhancing an adolescent’s empathy, decreasing screen time, and promoting positive social relationships to be effective. Developing high self-esteem and coping skills are also shown to be effective interventions. These interventions focus on in school programs completed during class, the intervention I would create would be on an individual level, outside of the school with group involvement as well. The program would be to enroll the perpetrator in individual counseling sessions as well as group counseling sessions. These sessions would focus on the consequences of cyber bullying on the victim, while teaching healthy communication skills, coping skills, and methods to increase social skills, empathy, and self-esteem. Parents would be involved too, helping parents learn to help their child while looking out for warning signs. Group sessions can be used to practice these skills through activities like role playing.