After watching the Megan Meier video, what do you feel should have been done differently by the law enforcement officials? What do you feel is an appropriate consequence for the person who cyber-bullied Megan? Do you feel that this tragedy could have been prevented? If so, how?
Ideally law enforcement officials would have taken a deeper look into the situation, but I cannot second guess their decisions. Face it, law enforcement, like teaching, has too many problems to deal with and not enough time and resources to do it. I don't know all the specifics of this incident, but I wonder what laws were in play at the time of this. Technology is changing more quickly than our laws can keep up. Because of this amount of change, people are learning what they should and should not do with this new tool. It doesn't surprise me that a young person created an account and posed as a fictional character. What does surprise me is the allegation that an adult, a parent who knew this girl, was somehow a part of this! What should be a consequence for the people involved in cyber-bullying? Good question. I guess I want to know what was the intent of the cyber-bullying? Did the perpetrator want to drive the victim to commit suicide? if yes, then jail/prison time is in order. If the intent was to find out why Megan was allegedly saying mean things about other people, then community service to educate people of ALL ages of the dangers and potential consequences of cyber-bullying seems more realistic. What really bothers me is a lack of remorse from the people involved who created this account and became the reason that pushed a young girl over the edge!
Could Megan's suicide been prevented? What I do know from the video clip is that Megan had a history of depression, fitting in at school, and low self-esteem. What was being done to help her with these issues? Was she seeing a therapist and/or doctor to help with the depression? What extra-curricular activities was she involved in? What had the parents done to help build her self-esteem? If nothing was being done with the above issues, then yes, I do think this tragedy could have been prevented. I think another issue is allowing a child to friend a person they do not know. Had the mother held firm not to let Megan become friends with Josh, Megan would never had this virtual relationship, which may have saved her from the heart-break leading to her death. If the mother had really listened to her daughter's pain instead of chiding her about the bad language, maybe Megan wouldn't have committed suicide. Maybe if we had tougher laws for any form of bullying, this wouldn't have happened. There are a lot of maybes when you use hind-sight. When tragedy strikes, the only thing you can do is look to see how you can prevent another one from striking. For all adults who are part of children's lives, we must help them develop healthy self-esteems that are not dependent upon what others think. We must educate them about the hazards and dangers of the Internet and modern technology. We must develop strong relationships with them, so we can truly listen to them and guide them. We must have tougher laws to convict perpetrators who prey on our children. We must learn from past tragedi
Ideally law enforcement officials would have taken a deeper look into the situation, but I cannot second guess their decisions. Face it, law enforcement, like teaching, has too many problems to deal with and not enough time and resources to do it. I don't know all the specifics of this incident, but I wonder what laws were in play at the time of this. Technology is changing more quickly than our laws can keep up. Because of this amount of change, people are learning what they should and should not do with this new tool. It doesn't surprise me that a young person created an account and posed as a fictional character. What does surprise me is the allegation that an adult, a parent who knew this girl, was somehow a part of this! What should be a consequence for the people involved in cyber-bullying? Good question. I guess I want to know what was the intent of the cyber-bullying? Did the perpetrator want to drive the victim to commit suicide? if yes, then jail/prison time is in order. If the intent was to find out why Megan was allegedly saying mean things about other people, then community service to educate people of ALL ages of the dangers and potential consequences of cyber-bullying seems more realistic. What really bothers me is a lack of remorse from the people involved who created this account and became the reason that pushed a young girl over the edge!
Could Megan's suicide been prevented? What I do know from the video clip is that Megan had a history of depression, fitting in at school, and low self-esteem. What was being done to help her with these issues? Was she seeing a therapist and/or doctor to help with the depression? What extra-curricular activities was she involved in? What had the parents done to help build her self-esteem? If nothing was being done with the above issues, then yes, I do think this tragedy could have been prevented. I think another issue is allowing a child to friend a person they do not know. Had the mother held firm not to let Megan become friends with Josh, Megan would never had this virtual relationship, which may have saved her from the heart-break leading to her death. If the mother had really listened to her daughter's pain instead of chiding her about the bad language, maybe Megan wouldn't have committed suicide. Maybe if we had tougher laws for any form of bullying, this wouldn't have happened. There are a lot of maybes when you use hind-sight. When tragedy strikes, the only thing you can do is look to see how you can prevent another one from striking. For all adults who are part of children's lives, we must help them develop healthy self-esteems that are not dependent upon what others think. We must educate them about the hazards and dangers of the Internet and modern technology. We must develop strong relationships with them, so we can truly listen to them and guide them. We must have tougher laws to convict perpetrators who prey on our children. We must learn from past tragedi