Urgent call to tame cyber delinquents

CHILDREN as young as eight are being bullied in internet chat rooms and primary schoolers are sending pornographic pictures on their mobiles as the menace of cyber bullying reaches a new legion of younger victims.

CHILDREN as young as eight are being bullied in internet chat rooms and primary schoolers are sending pornographic pictures on their mobiles as the menace of cyber bullying reaches a new legion of younger victims.

Experts are calling for radical action to try to halt the increase in "shocking" behaviour by some children and teenagers in chat rooms and on mobile phones and websites such as YouTube and MySpace.

They want a national public education campaign similar to the Cancer Council's "Slip, Slop, Slap" to inform adults and children to think twice about the damage they are doing in cyberspace - to "Think B4 U click".

Principals have reported cases of cyber bullying, including primary school children emailing a picture of a rotting human body with messages such as "Have a nice nightmare" and students using text messages to harass one another 24 hours a day.

This comes after videos emerged showing Victorian private school students being bullied and beaten up, and even partaking in organised "fight clubs".

"People think that it (cyber bullying) only happens to teenagers but that is not the case," said director of CyberSafeKids and education consultant Robyn Treyvaud.

"We are finding it is happening at an earlier age."

Ms Treyvaud, a former principal now based with Melbourne's Centre for Strategic Education, and who visits schools to educate children on cyber safety, said she had come across students as young as eight and nine having their own MySpace pages and logging on to chat rooms.

"Most of the bullying occurs in MSN Messenger and other chat rooms," she said. "And because of the anonymity of the internet, you can get away with it."

Ms Treyvaud said she had also seen cases of students sending "insidious" and rude images, including Year 6 students sending pornographic images via mobile phone.

"We have got kids that think that this behaviour is normal and it is OK - because everyone does it, it must be OK and it must be legal and it must be normal," she said.

"But whatever you do and say in a virtual world, you are going to have to put up with the consequences in the real world."

Ms Treyvaud said parents were struggling with how to cope with the issue and monitor their children's online use.

Clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller said he had seen patients as young as eight suffering from the devastating affects of cyber bullying.

"I have seen an amazing increase in the rate of cyber bullying, to the extent that 20 per cent of my patients are people dealing with cyber bullying," Mr Fuller said. "It is just shocking."

Some of the cyber bullying he had seen included young children spreading rumours in chat rooms that a student was gay, or stealing another student's password and using their cyber identity to insult other students.

Mr Fuller said he had seen families who had had to remove their children from schools and even leave an area because of the stress from cyber bullying.

Ms Treyvaud said there needed to be a national public education campaign, targeting children andadults, to help address the problem.