Many of the resources I’ve found on cyberbullying help parents understand what they can do when their child is being bullied. But what happens when the parent becomes the bully? In 2008, 13-year-old Megan Meier was harassed on Myspace by a “frenemies” mother. Lori Drew posed as a boy interested in Meier to gain insight into the nature of the her daughter and Meier’s “frenemy” relationship. After seducing this young girl to believe that she had found her “first love” Drew then used her fake myspace account to torture the girl into believing she was an awful person. Drew was only convicted of a few misdemeanor charges for her actions.
Incidents like this are a good reason for cyberbullying laws to exist and be more harsh. Also, this can also be a warning to parents. Parents need to be concerned about what their children are experiencing online and how they are being bullied. However, Drew claimed to have created this account to gain insight into the mutual bullying that was going on between her daughter and Meier. Obviously this is not the way to go about helping your child. I’ve seen many parents get the urge to bully the kids that are harassing their own kids but taking actions like this can cause awful things to happen.
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