Megan Meier, the 13-year-old who took her own life after being bullied online, is hopefully at peace. But her mom fights on in her name, having recently created a foundation to help reduce and prevent online bullying (”cyberbulling”). The Associated Press has the story:
But in recent months, the Missouri woman has focused on ways to protect other children from bullying, even leaving her job as a real estate agent to dedicate herself to the Megan Meier Foundation.
“Megan is still my daughter, no matter what, and I am going out there and fighting for her still because she is still my daughter,” Meier said.
A group of friends and relatives helped Meier create the foundation, which seeks to educate and encourage positive changes to prevent bullying and cyberbullying. Meier and the volunteers are working to improve laws. They speak at schools and to parent groups. They hope to begin offering scholarships to children who help other children in some way.
I found the rest of the article pretty interesting as well.
Although it’s likely of little solace to Megan’s mom, Tina, at least Lori Drew will stand trial for what she did.
And by focusing on the positive and what can be learned from a tragic situation like her own daughter’s death, Tina will ensure that Megan’s legacy will live on.
Read the full Associated Press article: Mom in Web bullying case turns grief into activism
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4 Comments to
“The Megan Meier Foundation”
Am I missing something here? If you’re bullied online, all you have to do is change your screen name, or alter your myspace/facebook privacy settings. It seems like a non-issue.
Yeah, people are bullied even after they change their screen names, because the bullies have ways of figuring out they did so and finding their new profiles. If you want to do any amount of sharing online, details come out and some folks will spend enormous amounts of time and energy tracking them down. Why? Who knows, but the fact that there’s little downside to the behavior (e.g., no repercussions for doing so), likely doesn’t help…
You’re also talking about kids who don’t always see what seems like an obvious solution.
Bullying is often subtle. Sometimes the bullies may not even be aware that they are bullying. The bullies probably feel that they have been hurt and so they push and they don’t take notice that they are hurting someone else. It is a never-ending cycle (not that every victim pushes back in that way, but there will always be some who will). I would bet that Lori Drew wishes now that she hadn’t done what she did. I bet that she was hurt too, and felt justified in doing what she did at the time.
Bullies aren’t only kids. People who grow up with those behaviors (either or both sides of it) don’t just stop. It extends from real life to online, and from one context or situation to another. It’s a pattern. And it’s usually subtle and hard to spot. Usually nobody dies, but they may be hurt deeply. They might want to die. They might suffer lasting emotional consequences.
I’m glad that someone is looking into it. A good starting place might be for all of us to look around and be more conscious of our own behavior and what is going on around us. Are we doing something that subtly hurts someone? If we are in positions of power, and someone tells us they are being hurt, do we pay attention to that, or do we tell them to stop bothering us?
This isn’t just a problem between some kids on MySpace. It’s here, and it’s all around us. It always starts somewhere, usually small.
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