The other day while hanging out on Facebook, I noticed a post from a teen girl who is a member of my TodaysGirls.com website. It said, “I love to troll websites. It’s so much fun.”
I wondered what she meant, so I looked up the definition of “troll”: to make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
Wow, she better not troll on the Today’s Girls site, I thought. I checked her posts, and they were still nice and positive, but it upset me that she would troll and bully others just for fun. Her idea of fun affects the lives of others.
Is your teen daughter or granddaughter the target of a troll? Is she being cyberbullied? What can you do to help her?
1) Understand the cause. First of all, know that bullies or trolls are often people who have been bullied, abused or feel that they need to protect their power position in their clique, such as the “popular” girl. To cope with their stressful situation, they take it out on someone else who they feel is weaker and has low self-esteem.
2) Block the troll. If your daughter is being cyberbullied on her favorite site by a troll (they usually remain anonymous), encourage her to block the person immediately.
3) Report the abuse. Encourage your daughter to be assertive, calm and tell her not to react to the comments of others if they’re negative. If there isn’t a reaction, the troll might eventually lose interest. If the troll doesn’t lose interest, she needs to report the abuse to the webmaster of the site.
Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31)
Did I talk to the teen girl who posted about trolling? Yes, indeed, I did!
