What promises to be one of the most powerful movies - true or fictional - to come out about bullying is BULLY, a documentary set to premiere in select cities on March 30^th. The film explores how bullying has affected five different kids and their families. Filmed over the course of the 2009-2010 school year, BULLY shows how kids' lives are endangered, how teachers and administrators respond to different behaviors and incidents and how more and more parents and youths are trying to change how bullying is handled in schools and communities.

The film has already received high praise and various awards including "Winner" and "Official Selection" at multiple film festivals last year. An accompanying initiative of the film is The Bully Project, bringing together partner organizations that are against bullying, and that hope to change societal norms that have allowed bullying incidents to occur to the different extents highlighted in the film. Check out The Bully Project website here, featuring information for parents, students, educators and advocates, a viewing guide to help adult and student audiences understand the meaning of the film and the opportunity to "share your bully story," giving kids from all over the country the opportunity to post stories or photos or record videos about their own personal experiences with bullying.

Watch the official trailer here and be sure to catch BULLY when it comes to theaters in your city.

Is this a movie that you will encourage your kids to see? Have there been serious bullying problems in your child's school?

When was the last time you took a close look at the Suggested Friends provided on your Facebook account? I'm often surprised by some of the recommendations I get and wonder: how does Facebook make these? I have looked over some of the suggested names and see that there are some with whom I have a connection based off of "Friends of Friends" but what about the names that I don't recognize at all? Where do they come from? And even more important, who is Facebook recommending that kids become friends with?

Many people are asking themselves the same question and I've done some research on this subject. It turns out that Facebook saves your imported contact lists and based on email addresses you have uploaded, it suggests friends even if you didn't choose to add them yourself. Facebook also uses other people's contact lists to figure out possible relationships based on mutual contacts! As long as your friends have your contact information - i.e. email address - Facebook can use this to send you Friend Suggestions.

Even if you yourself have chosen to not upload your contact list, your friends may not have done the same and their lists will therefore generate suggestions that will still come your way. Thereissomething you can do to help limit the number of questionable suggestions. These are also steps you can take with your kids on their accounts to limit possible strangers or adults who might be suggested to them as friends:

• Log into your Facebook account and go to your Privacy Settings.
• In theHow You Connectsection, click on Edit Settings.
• Here, you can adjust the settings for Who can look up your profile by name or contact info. The options are Everyone, Friends of Friends  or Friends.
• You can also adjust the settings for Who can send you friend requests. The only choices for this setting are Everyone  and Friends of Friends. I would recommend Friends of Friends  because Everyone  will only open you or your children up to the entire online community.

Specifying these settings is all about choices - if you choose to let Facebook allow old friends, classmates, co-workers, etc. to find you then there is a good chance that they will! The same goes for your children's privacy settings. If theirPrivacyandHow You Connectsettings aren't secure and as private as possible, there is a chance that the wrong people might contact them.

What Privacy Settings do you have on your account? Have you gone through the different settings with your kids to make sure their accounts are as secure and private as possible?

Today Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, are launching the Born This Way Foundation, a national anti-bullying movement to empower youth. As stated on the foundation's website, the Born This Way mission is to "foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated." There is a keynote this afternoon at Harvard University featuring Lady Gaga and Cynthia, Oprah Winfrey and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The event will be live streamed from 1-2:30PM PST.

Noted on the site are the three pillars of the Born This Way Foundation, including creating safe places to celebrate individuality, skills to teach advocacy and promote civic engagement  and opportunities for ways to implement solutions  and get local communities involved. The more interactive aspects of the Foundation include sharing "Stories of Bravery," entering a poster contest and donating money to the cause. The foundation stems from Lady Gaga's own insecurities growing up and being a victim of bullies herself. She has also repeatedly spoken out about the teen suicides in the United States as a result of bullying, particularly those of LGBT youth.

This foundation is a great complement to other anti-bullying initiatives like the Great American NO BULL Challenge and we look forward to following what it does to activate and inspire youths to take a stand against bullying.

We recently checked out this infographic about bullying in schools, created by the law offices of Buckfire & Buckfire in Michigan. Researched and designed after the office began receiving frequent calls from concerned parents about their children being harassed at school, the infographic shows facts and statistics about student bullying. One of the most shocking numbers on there is that 160,000 students miss school every day for fear of being bullied. Equally as concerning is that 77% of students are bullied mentally, verbally and physically, and cyberbullying statistics are approaching similar numbers.

Learn more about school bullying below and share this post with other parents to show how bullying is a growing and increasingly dangerous problem.

[Source: Buckfire and Buckfire.com]

Have your kids experienced bullying in the past? Have you ever had to speak with school administrators or law officers about these kinds of problems?

Kathryn Rose is an award-winning author, speaker and social media strategist. She has  written 6 books on social media marketing, including The Step by Step Guides to Facebook, Twitter, SEO/Video Marketing and LinkedIn for Business, as well as The Parent's and Grandparent's Guides to Facebook. Kathryn also serves on SocialShield's Parent Advisory Council, and has contributed the below blog post to address the new Facebook Timeline.

This past December, Facebook began rolling out yet another site redesign. This one is called "Timeline." In the updated versions of my books The Parent's Guide to Facebook: Tips and Strategies to Protect Your Children on the World's Largest Social Network, and Staying Safe on Facebook: A Guide for Teens, I address the Timeline feature and the privacy and interactions associated with this new design.

The Timeline essentially aims to turn your Facebook profile into an online scrapbook. Mark Zuckerberg describes the new features as "the story of your life...a new way to express who you are." This will eventually be mandatory for all users and cannot be reversed so beware of any links claiming to revert your profile to the old version, as these are most likely viruses. Do not click on them!

Once you are notified that your Timeline is active, you will have 7 days to review your settings and information before everything gets published publicly.

There are also, as with all redesigns of the social network, some privacy challenges that users should be aware of. The first thing you will notice is that unlike in the past, if someone wanted to see your old posts from when you first joined Facebook, they would have to scroll to the bottom of your wall and click "See older posts" over and over again until they found what they were looking for. Now, old posts, photos and videos are more easily accessible by simply clicking a specific year on your Timeline. This could expose some older posts that you may have forgotten about or don't want visible. Imagine you joined Facebook while you were in college and some of the older posts contain embarrasing or borderline inappropriate content - this can be of concern to many people.

I suggest that once you switch to the new design, you take some time to go through your old posts and either remove them completely or hide them from your Timeline if you don't feel that they represent you in a good light.

If you have been on Facebook for many years like I have, this can be an arduous task to be sure. It takes some time to sort through each post and decide not only if you want certain content to be shown, but to whom. Many times, Facebook has changed the settings on old posts to "public," meaning anyone who comes to your profile can see the post.

To easily view your old posts, you will need to click on the "Activity Log" button. This will bring up a screen that ONLY YOU can see and includes a complete list of everything you've shared from today back to when you joined Facebook. You can go through each and every post, photo, etc. and decide if you want it displayed on the Timeline. You can also click on the circle next to the post and decide whether or not to allow this on your Timeline. An open circle means it is visible and a circle with a line through it means it is not. Lastly, you can "star" specific posts that you want featured more prominently on your Timeline.

In the prior Facebook design, all of your personal information including birthdate, interests, education, work history, etc. were housed under the "Info" tab. In the redesign, this information is located under the "Update Info" button on the right side of the screen. You are also able to control the privacy of each piece of information.

The one thing I really want to caution people on is that Facebook wants you to feel comfortable sharing all the details of your life including many pieces of information that provide great value for identify theft. Also, remember that all of the information you post on Facebook can be shared with advertisers and other data collection sites. This may or may not be a concern of yours but is worth mentioning.

There is, of course, controversy surrounding the new Facebook redesign as there has been with all iterations of the platform. Be sure to take time to navigate the new design and re-check your privacy settings so you can feel comfortable and enjoy your Facebook experience with privacy and safety in mind.

Check out the infographic that the team from Help for Depression recently shared with us. While there are many positive aspects of social networks when used safely, the statistics and findings below show how people use Facebook to share thoughts, feelings and personal interests.

How do your kids choose to use Facebook and other social networks? Do you ever worry that they might be expressing fears and concerns online that you aren't aware of?

Largest Youth-Led National Campaign Against Cyberbullying to Spotlight Realities of Bullying in the Digital Age

SAN BRUNO, Calif., Jan. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SocialShield, (www.socialshield.com), the leading online monitoring service for kids' social networking activities, today announced it is sponsoring  The Great American NO BULL Challenge. The grassroots, youth-led movement invites America's 25 million teens to unite against bullying through a peer-to-peer video contest and video awards event. Spokespeople include young adults who were bullied in their youth. Beginning  January 15th, teens across the country will write and direct their own anti-bullying videos to submit. The winners of the NO BULL Challenge will be announced at a Red Carpet Awards Event in  San Francisco on  July 21, 2012 and the winning videos will be used as Public Service Announcements.

"The false anonymity and en masse mentality social networks provide kids quickly evolve a harmless prank or tease into a major cyberbullying situation which is far more psychologically damaging to our youth than a schoolyard fight," said George Garrick, CEO of SocialShield. "Addressing cyberbullying is going to require peer influence and communication -- teens talking to each other and parents talking with their teens. The NO BULL Challenge is a powerful catalyst for those conversations."

SocialShield is a social network monitoring service for parents that scans, analyzes and alerts them to suspicious or potentially dangerous activity like cyberbullying and contact from strangers. Kids spend hours a day on social media and with the amount of activity that takes place parents can't possibly review everything. Being their child's online friend only offers a very limited snapshot of the activity since most of it happens in private groups or conversations. SocialShield enables parents to extend their parenting to their kid's social network, giving them a peace of mind that they will be alerted of any concerning activity.

The Great American NO BULL Challenge was created by cyber safety expert and bestselling author Shawn Edgington. More information can be found at nobullchallenge.org.

Technology has opened up so many doors for both us and our children to better communicate, research, learn and socialize. But does technology also make our kids grow up faster? The internet certainly has given us great access to information, but of course not all of that information is suitable for children. There was a time before Google and social networks when it was easy for parents to monitor news and information that was distributed via television, newscast and newspapers. Today, information reaches people so fast, and kids can receive the same news alerts and information before we have time to process or explain it. Kids with mobile or handheld devices especially, such as smartphones, PSP, iPods and iPads have even quicker access. Parent who allow their children these kinds of devices need to be sure that they are ready to handle conversations with their kids about what's going on in news, entertainment and other media.

Some things for parents to consider when their kids have easy access to technology and the online world:

1. Does a certain device (phone or other gadget) use WiFI?  This allows for open wireless communication and less secure online access; encourage the use of more private and secure connections when using a device to go online.
2. Are there parental controls that can be set-up on the device?  Some devices have built-in settings, or controls that can be purchased or downloaded to help protect against sites and content unsuitable for children.
3. Can you turn off/on certain functions that can be protected with a password?  There are some applications and services that may not be suitable for children. Being able to turn on or off certain functions and blocking a child's ability to change them until they reach  a more mature age can provide peace of mind when kids are using certain devices.

Teaching our children to be more responsible online is the most important thing parents can do in the midst of all of these changing technologies and online capabilities. Having an open dialog and communicating with our children is crucial, especially when they receive a new device or start to gain access to more information online as they get older.

Making headlines this past week has been a tweet that an 18-year-old high school senior wrote in reference to her state's governor. Emma Sullivan, a student at Shawnee Mission East high school in Kansas, was participating in a Youth in Government program in Topeka where she, among friends and classmates, was listening to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback speak. During the talk, she tweeted: "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot". While she didn't actually speak to Governor Brownback directly, her tweet has received both local and national attention, as well as contact from the Governor's office and a demand from her principal that she issue a written apology.

Like many other political organizations, Governor Brownback's office monitors various social media outlets and contacted the Youth in Government program upon reading Sullivan's tweet. Karl R. Krawitz, the principal of Shawnee Mission East, demanded that Sullivan give the Governor a written apology, a demand that this past Sunday, Sullivan says she is rejecting, saying she isn't sorry and doesn't think issuing a formal apology would be sincere. As an explanation for her tweet, Sullivan disagrees with Brownback politically, especially because of his decision to eliminate arts funding in Kansas public schools (making it the only state to do so).

While Sullivan is receiving a lot of attention - both positive and negative - for her tweet, the lesson we want to highlight is that anything posted online can usually be seen or discovered by an outside party. Sullivan has gained over 12,000 followers (up from 65) since sending this particular tweet. In a statement, her mother Julie explained that her daughter wasn't addressing the thousands of followers she now has, "she was talking to 65 friends." But because Sullivan's tweets were public, which is the default setting for Twitter accounts, anyone could read their content. While it doesn't look like Sullivan is going to face any real repercussions or punishment - she was, after all, exercising her right to free speech - both parents and kids should be aware that other information posted publicly online could result in far worse consequences.

What do you think about Emma Sullivan's tweet? What would your reaction be if your child posted something online that garnered so much public attention?

It's that time of year again when kids start having more time off from school (Thanksgiving, snow days, winter break) and more time to spend online. Add to the mix the frenzied holiday schedules that parents are busy coordinating, and it may seem impossible to be able to effectively monitor what our kids are doing online during this busy time. But by setting some ground rules and encouraging time away from the computer, parents can still make sure their kids are being safe and responsible online during this holiday season.

One ground rule could be to encourage social networking and other online activities to be done in open, shared areas of the house. This will ensure that kids are going on appropriate sites, and also let you monitor anything that has been downloaded onto the family computer. Also remember to remind your kids that even though they have time off from school, peers or classmates will still be online and can post potentially cruel or inappropriate comments on others' profiles. The scariest part about cyberbullying is that it doesn't stop when kids are away from school. Lastly, emphasize to your kids the importance of keeping personal information online private. There is a huge surge in online shopping and special discounts or deals during the holiday season and kids can be easily tricked into sharing information that outside parties should not have.

While there's no way to completely protect our kids against different online threats, establishing rules and guidelines for online use - and monitoring when we can - will help our kids stay safe during this busy time of the year!

What kinds ofoffline activities do you encourage your kids to do when they have school vacations?