Last week I had the opportunity to meet and hear a presentation from Tina Meier. In 2006, Tina’s 13 year-old daughter Megan committed suicide after being in an online MySpace relationship with a 16 year old boy named Josh Evans. Megan killed herself after the boy told Megan that the world would be a better place without her. After an investigation it was discovered that the 16 year old boy was actually the mother of a girl who knew Megan and who lived a few doors down the street from her. It was a fake account that was intended to humiliate Megan.
The presentation by Tina Meier was heartbreaking on so many levels. The senseless loss of a young girl’s life combined with how easy it is for someone to anonymously bully a person through an online medium is frightening. Tina Meir now travels North America telling the story of her daughter with the hope that it will prevent others from being bullied in school and through cyber-bullying. She has also started up the Megan Meier Foundation and the website with resources can be found at www.meganmeierfoundation.org Tina Meier has also been a strong advocate for the changing of laws to ensure that people cannot hide behind fake identities to bully online.
Despite the efforts of Tina Meier and many others, it is tragically clear that there is so much more to do to prevent bullying. Only a few days after I heard Tina Meier’s story, our nation learned the heart-breaking story of Amanda Todd who committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied in school and on the Internet.
Bullying has always been a challenge in our schools and for young people. It is made especially difficult with the ability to cyber-bully either anonymously or from a distance. Many bullying victims now face the torment of it on a nearly constant basis, without relief.
Tina Meier stresses how important it is to be vigilant in watching and being engaged with what your children are doing online and ensuring that the friends they interact with online are in fact truly their friends. The Canadian website cybertip.ca also provides parents and young people with resources and ideas to improve Internet safety.
It is clear that bullying both within the schools and through cyber space is a problem that continues to impact far too many young people. It is important that there be greater efforts on education and awareness on a much more aggressive scale than exists today. But it also has to go beyond education. When bullying happens, it is important that those who are conducting the bullying have meaningful intervention and consequences to protect those who are the targets and those who may become the targets. The challenge for all lawmakers is ensuring better efforts are made on both the side of prevention and enforcement on bullying.
