One problem that faces children today takes place not in school, but in cyberspace. Writer Kathe Telingator has this tale of dealing with an anonymous bully.

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When I was a kid, it was a rather straightforward thing.  You had something to say to a friend, you picked up the phone and spoke to her. 

And, when you weren’t sure what you wanted to say, or were perhaps intimidated by the intensity of the feelings behind what you wanted to say, you picked up the phone . . . and put it down.  And, then, maybe, you picked it up again . . . and put it down again.  And, perhaps on the third try, you dialed the number, waiting to hear a voice, and when a voice answered, you hung up.  There was no caller id, no star 69, no way for one 11-year-old to trace back a call from another.

Today, communication between pre-teens, much like that for adults, is a whole different ballgame.  You don’t want to express yourself verbally, you don’t have to.  Yes, there have always been letters, but they offer neither the immediacy, nor the cloak of anonymity that e-mail does today. 

And then there is instant messaging -- a whole tea-party of conversation where one and all can chime in – boys and girls who might not be caught dead conversing on the playground, can be discovered sounding off to one another as part of a group IMing. 

Everyone touts the great advantages of being able to communicate on line, but what about the problems?

In my family, we had our own wake-up call when my 11-year-old daughter received an anonymous e-mail.  The language used was shocking, and the message was steeped in jealous rage.

[“Hi, my name is Halla, and I am friends with kill you.  You think you’re so cool with your Abercrombie clothes and your cool hair, but you’re just a f__n teacher’s pet and you are no f__n good at sports.  Well see you soon.”]

My daughter was scared and I was scared for her.

That afternoon, while she was still in school, I sat down and read through the morning missive several more times.  I then trolled through my daughter’s e-mail correspondence, in the hope of finding some clues.

I was troubled by much of what I read – e-mails she received from friends, e-mails she had sent to others.  The language used, the tenor of the commentary, often about kids who, last I heard, were close friends not two weeks ago, was disturbing.  “Yes, she is fat, and her clothes are ugly,” my daughter wrote in response to another girl’s negative assessment of a mutual friend.  Where was this “attitude” coming from?  I wondered.  I had never heard my child talk about someone this way.

When she came home from school, she and I talked about what I had read.  She took no issue with the fact that I had read the e-mails, but seemed startled and annoyed by my dismay at some of the things she had written.

“Why would you write something like that in a message?”  I asked.  “Is it something you would have ever said aloud?  And, if not, why was it o.k. to put it in writing to someone else?”  She didn’t have much of an answer, but was contrite and somewhat ashamed.

“Did you mention the e-mail to anyone at school today?” I asked her.  “Just a few people and no one knew anything,” she replied.

Sometime after finishing her homework, my daughter returned to the computer and logged on to her IM account.

“Do you know anything about the e-mail I mentioned to you?” my daughter wrote her friend, whom we’ll call Louise.  Now, I was standing behind her.  Louise’s response startled us both.  “I’m really sorry.  Please don’t be mad.  Jessica and I didn’t mean it.  It was just a joke.”  “Stand up,” I said.  “Hardly a joke,” I wrote back. The culprits were both friends of hers.  My daughter was in tears.  We turned the computer off. 

I immediately called Jessica’s mother, whom I know.  She was confounded and horrified.  She promised to speak to Jessica that evening and to let me know what she found out.

At 10:00 p.m., our phone rang.  “Could Jessica and I come over?” asked her mother, “my daughter has something to say to your daughter.” 

Through the tears and the apologies over the course of a very painful day, I continued to wonder: What would possess a couple of 11-year-olds to go to the trouble of creating an anonymous e-mail address and to craft such a hateful message to someone they otherwise considered a friend? 

I wanted to know more.  But before calling on a specialist, I talked to another parent with another story to tell.  In her case, her young daughter shared her password for a kid’s computer game with a classmate so that he might sample the website for himself.  Unbeknownst to her, the classmate co-opted her user name and password, logged on to their shared instant messaging program and over the course of many weeks, posing as her, wrote nasty commentary about everyone they knew.  She was suddenly shunned by her classmates, teased and taunted.  No one – neither the girl, nor her parents – could fathom what was going on.  One day she tried to sign on to the IM account . . . at the same time the other child was already logged on as her.  Her older brother immediately got online himself, began chatting the kid up, and soon they were able to identify the culprit.  It was devastating and eye-opening for everyone involved.

Now I’d heard enough. 

Cyberbullying is defined as threats or other offensive behavior sent online to a victim or sent or posted online about the victim for others to see.  I’d read the articles; I knew this.  I got it.  But 11-year-olds as perpetrators? 

“It’s not really a surprise,” explained my friend, Dr. Joshua Kahn, a child and adolescent psychiatrist.  “Kids are much more sophisticated about computers than adults realize. They are empowered in a way that they have never been before. Kids who might otherwise be perceived as quiet or isolated, or who are uncomfortable asserting themselves in public discover that the internet can be a tool to communicate anger, jealousy, and frustration.  Kids struggling with issues of self-esteem can say what they want anonymously, and avoid personal contact or confrontation in the process.  This secret form of communication usually carries no culpability and might unleash excessive and unhealthy anger. Their satisfaction is usually short-lived and unresolved.” 

No doubt, this is all true and so is the fact that it isn’t as easy to protect our children as it used to be. 

What else did I learn?  Being both more observant and more vigilant about my daughter’s computer use is as important as making her aware of its dangers.  And, as a parent, I need to provide her with the coping skills to contend with and best channel her emotions and the emotions of others. 

So, I must tell her that there is no simple explanation as to why someone would send an anonymous angry note to a supposed friend.  I must also tell her is that she shouldn’t ever feel badly about who she is, or what skills or looks she possesses, just because they stir up feelings in other people. 

And, as I told Jessica late that Friday night, everyone struggles with feelings of jealousy, frustration and anger over the course of their lives.  There’s nothing wrong with having those feelings.  There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to express them.  E-mails and IM can be very dangerous means of communication; once you hit “send,” there is no taking it back.

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Kathe Telingator was the longtime producer of Stories on Stage for Chicago Public Radio.