Lowell Sun – October 28, 2009

WESTFORD — Glittergrrl sends an instant message to Popcornisamazing “just to let her know” people were talking about her complexion.

It was a dig at one of the most important things to many high-school girls — their appearance.

However, Glittergrrl disguises it as an act of concern for her friend, justifying her previous text with another stating, “I would want to know if people were talking about me behind my back. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“This is basically a declaration of war in the world of high-school girls,” said Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence. “Technology obliterates the boundary between home and Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence, speaks at the 14th annual School Safety Summit at Nashoba Tech’s Performing Arts Center in Westford. The forum was co-sponsored by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and Middlesex Partnership for Youth Inc. school. What children do online impacts their personal lives.”

Wiseman spoke yesterday morning in front of about 300 teachers, school administrators, counselors, coaches, and public-safety officials who directly work with children. The 14th annual School Safety Summit at Nashoba Valley Technical High School was co-sponsored by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and Middlesex Partnership for Youth Inc.

The conference addressed ways to deal with bullying, harassment, “sexting” and aggression in a school environment.

Wiseman was the keynote speaker. Her best-selling novel was the inspiration of the movie Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey. She is the founder of the Empower Program, a national nonviolence program that helps students, parents, educators, counselors and others deal with creating a safe environment in schools.

Most of the forum focused on the new horizon for tween and teen bullying — the Internet.

“It’s getting worse because of the anonymity of electronic communication,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said of cyber-bullying. “It’s so anonymous and impersonal, yet you have this dichotomy since it is very public and can be forwarded to the whole world. It’s the worst of both worlds, and it never goes away.”

Wiseman explained that the phenomenon is very difficult for both parents and teachers to control because the Internet is available at their fingertips through cell phones. Even if parents monitor their children’s e-mails and Facebook profiles, and even if schools use firewalls to block certain Web sites, cyber-bullying continues, Wiseman said.

“We only know about 20 percent of what is going on with kids,” she said. “I always ask a crowd of high-schoolers to raise their hands if they tell their parents their e-mail address is, for example, Ilovekittens, but in reality, it’s Sexygirl. The entire room is filled with hands within seconds.”

So-called sexting has become another major issue among tweens and teens today. In April, three students from Marshall Middle School in Billerica were ordered to attend a cyber-education program offered by the State Police after a 14-year-old girl sent a text message with a partially nude photo of herself as an attachment to a boy at Billerica Memorial High School. The photo was then forwarded to other classmates by two boys, ages 13 and 14. The picture of the middle-school girl circulated through the community by cell-phone text messages in late January.

“Sexting is very fluid and moving all the time,” Wiseman said. “Next year we’ll be talking about videos rather than sexting. This is moving fast. We’re playing catch-up, and we’re not doing a good job.”