Your role in the community, How you can support

your community, Looking after the environment

Your role in the community:

Becoming a British citizen or settling in the UK
brings responsibilities but also opportunities.
Everyone has the opportunity to participate in their
community. This section looks at some of the
responsibilities of being a citizen and gives
information about how you can help to make your
community a better place to live and work.

Values and responsibilities:

Although Britain is one of the world’s most diverse
societies, there is a set of shared values and
responsibilities that everyone can agree with. These
values and responsibilities that everyone can agree
with. These values and responsibilities include:
• To obey and respect the law
• To be aware of the rights of others and respect
those rights
• To treat others with fairness
• To behave responsibly
• To help and protect your family
• To respect and preserve the environment
• To treat everyone equally, regardless of sex, race,
religion, age, disability, class or sexual orientation
• To work to provide for yourself and your family
• To help others
• To vote in local and national government elections.
Taking on these values and responsibilities will make
it easier for you to become a full and active citizen.

Being a good neighbour:

When you move into a new house or apartment,
introduce yourself to the people who live near you.
Getting to know your neighbours can help you to
become part of the community and make friends.
Your neighbours are also a good source of help – for
example, they may be willing to feed your pets if you
are away, or offer advice on local shops and
services.
You can help prevent any problems and conflicts
with your neighbours by respecting their privacy and
limiting how much noise you make. Also try to keep
your garden tidy, and only put your refuse bags and
bins on the street or in communal areas if they are
due to be collected.

Getting involved in local activities:

Volunteering and helping your community are an
important part of being a good citizen. They enable
you to integrate and get to know other people. It
helps to make your community a better place if
residents support each other. It also helps you to
fulfil your duties as a citizen, such as behaving
responsibly and helping others.

How you can support your community:

There are a number of positive ways in which you
can support your community and be a good citizen.

Jury service:
As well as getting the right to vote, people on the
electoral register are randomly selected to serve on
a jury. Anyone who is on the electoral register and is
aged 18 to 70 can be asked to do this.

Helping in schools:
If you have children, there are many ways in which
you can help at their schools. Parents can often help
in classrooms, by supporting activities or listening to
children read.
Many schools organise events to raise money for
extra equipment or out-ofschool activities. Activities
might include book sales, toy sales or bringing food
to sell. You might have good ideas of your own for
raising money.
Sometimes events are organised by parent-teacher
associations (PTAs). Volunteering to help with their
events or joining the association is a way of doing
something good for the school and also making new
friends in your local community. You can find out
about these opportunities from notices in the school
or notes your children bring home.

School governors and school boards:

School governors, or members of the school board
in Scotland, are people from the local community
who wish to make a positive contribution to their
children’s education. They must be aged 18 or over
at the date of their election or appointment. There is
no upper age limit.
Governors and school boards have an important part
to play in raising school standards. They have three
key roles:
• Setting the strategic direction of the school
• Ensuring accountability
• Monitoring and evaluating school performance.
You can contact your local school to ask if they need
a new governor or school board member. In
England, you can also apply online at the School
Governors’ One-Stop Shop at www.sgoss.org.uk
In England, parents and other community groups
can apply to open a free school in their local area.
More information about this can be found on the
Department for Education website at www.dfe.gov.uk

Supporting political parties:

Political parties welcome new members. Joining one
is a way to demonstrate your support for certain
views and to get involved in the democratic process.
Political parties are particularly busy at election
times. Members work hard to persuade people to
vote for their candidates – for instance, by handing
out leaflets in the street or by knocking on people’s
doors and asking for their support. This is called
‘canvassing’. You don’t have to tell a canvasser how
you intend to vote if you don’t want to.
British citizens can stand for office as a local
councillor, a member of Parliament (or the devolved
equivalents) or a member of the European
Parliament. This is an opportunity to become even
more involved in the political life of the UK. You may
also be able to stand for office if you are an Irish
citizen, an eligible Commonwealth citizen or (except
for standing to be an MP) a citizen of another EU
country.
You can find out more about joining a political party
from the individual party websites.

Helping with local services:

There are opportunities to volunteer with a wide
range of local service providers, including local
hospitals and youth projects. Services often want to
involve local people in decisions about the way in
which they work. Universities, housing associations,
museums and arts councils may advertise
for people to serve as volunteers in their governing
bodies.

Social networks like Facebook and Instagram are

just one type of community, albeit one of the most
recognizable ones on the web today.

Other community types include user groups, special

interest forums and message boards, chat rooms,
and even “virtual worlds.” Every community, big or
small, relies on people embodying five different roles
to be successful. Communities that have all five
working together are the ones that tend to succeed
and become desirable destinations.

1.The host: Somebody has to be willing to

entertain all these guests. The host’s job is to
put on a great event, maintain the peace, and
clean up after the party is over. On top of that,
 the host has to make sure everybody is having a
good time by keeping your glass full, the food
coming, the music playing, and the
entertainment lively. Without the host you
wouldn’t have a place to kick back, hang up your
coat, and pass the time. The host’s job isn’t all
fun though. The host has to be willing to set
some rules, enforce them, and (when in doubt)
kick some people out. Perhaps most importantly,
the host needs to be trustworthy. After all, no
one wants to attend a sketchy party.
2.The facilitator: They’re often confused with the
host because they seem like a do-gooder who
wants to ensure everyone is having a good time.
However, the facilitator plays a different and very
important role. The facilitator has a curious
nature and truly enjoy a good conversation.
 Without the facilitator, conversations would grow
quiet and stagnant — people would stop
mingling and meeting other people. On some
levels the facilitator is a matchmaker. Their
grasp of all the things taking place in the
community is amazing. But, unlike the voyeur,
the facilitator is willing to share that information
with people.
3.The popular one: This is the most important
person in the community. Yes, the popular one
makes it all about “me,” but they also bring a
whole bunch of people with them. Some people
show up to see them. Some people show up to
be able to say they saw them. Some people
show up because they might see them. The
popular one has a tight-knit set of friends and a
large group of pseudo-friends that show up
 wherever they go. If you don’t get the popular
one(s) to show up, you’re going to have a tiny,
boring, and listless community.
4.The instigator: Somebody needs to stir the pot.
Somebody needs to be willing to say the things
others won’t and do the things that make people
shake their head. That’s what’s great about the
instigator — they keep things interesting. People
simultaneously love and hate the instigator.
They love watching what comes next, but they
hate all the attention he/she gets. But, here’s the
thing — everybody loves controversy. It’s the
reason the news outlets exist. If everyday was
72 degrees and sunny and everybody was
happy, no one would tune in or read the paper.
The instigator engages in conversations just to
 take the “other” position. They are pure
entertainment.
5.The voyeur: I love the voyeur. They don’t cause
problems, usually lend a hand to the host, never
overstay their welcome, and always tell
everyone what a GREAT time they had. In some
circles they’re known as wallflowers, but that’s
not really giving them their due. Wallflowers
don’t interact and seldom even show up. The
voyeur shows up. It’s that showing up that helps
the community out tremendously. They make an
impact even without actively participating,
because they can be counted. The host can
say/claim 500 people showed up, even if 420 of
them were voyeurs. Without the voyeur we’d all
be in trouble.
I’m sure you identify with one of these roles. Often
I’m the instigator, but other times I’m the host. Read
my tweets, check out my posts on forums, and look
at my comments on other people’s blogs to see the
type of investigator I am.

Knowing these roles and being able to spot the

people playing them is critical to making sure your
community finds success. You may find the
weightings in your community differ slightly — and
that’s ok, because every community is different.

Community of practice (CoP) is a primary

framework in social computing research that

addresses learning and organizing specific

practices in online communities. However, the

classic CoP theory does not provide a detailed

account for how practices change or evolve.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing

occupational landscape, it is crucial to

understand how people participate in online

communities focused on practices that have a

volatile nature, as well as how social

computing tools can best support them. In this

article, we examine user experience (UX)

design as a volatile practice that has no

coherent body of knowledge and lacks a

concrete path for newcomers to become a UX

professional. Our study site is the

“/r/userexperience” subreddit, an online UX

community where practitioners socialize and

learn. Using a mixed-methods approach, we

identified five distinct social roles in relation to

knowledge production and dissemination in

the online community of volatile practice. We

demonstrate that knowledge production is

highly distributed, involving the participation

and sensemaking of community members of

varied levels of experience. We discuss how

online platforms support online community of

volatile practice and how our findings

contribute to the CoP literature.

Responsibilities

● Support Community Programs. Support the

GitLab for Education, GitLab for Open Source,

and GitLab for Startups programs, as well as

any new programs that are created, and the

associated community programs' application

 workflow. This includes responding to all

in-bound applications and requests from

program members as we work towards further

automating these flows.

● Implement, maintain, and troubleshoot.

Actively participate in the implementation of, and

then lead the maintenance of the Automated

Community Programs workflows. This includes

improving and troubleshooting related processes

and working cross-functionally with associated

teams in Community Relations, Product,

 Fulfillment, Sales Operations, and Customer

Support.

● Maintain tool stack. Maintain the tool stack

required for all Community Relations team

operations. This includes, but is not limited to:

Keyhole, Zendesk, Discourse, SheerID, Coupa,

Allocadia, Disqus, and Google Analytics. See

the full tech stack list here.

● Maintain budget. Establish quarterly budgeting

processes. Maintain and lead a regular planning

and reporting cadence for the Community

Relations team.
● Improve efficiency. Maximize the Community

Relations team's efficiency, productivity, and

performance.

● Measure effectiveness of community

programs. Partner with all Program Managers

on the Community Relations team to measure

and report the success and effectiveness of their

programs. In doing so, you will also be working

closely with the Marketing Operations, and Data

and Analytics teams.

● Maintain Community website page content.

Ensure that we have up-to-date content on our

 community website pages and liaise with the

web team to ensure the design and UX is

consistent with the rest of the website.

● Monitor changes. GitLab moves very quickly,

an aspect of this role is keeping up with all the

changes that occur in the product and offerings.

This role will keep abreast of changes and make

sure that the programs adapt.

● Use GitLab. Use GitLab extensively to organize

work and collaborate cross-functionally.

Requirements
● You thrive at developing process improvements

and are an excellent critical thinker.

● You share our values, and work in accordance

with those values.

● You thrive at developing new approaches and

refining existing processes to enable teams to

work more efficiently.

● You are pattern-seeking and enjoy creating

replicable, scalable processes.

● You love making sure community members have

the best experience possible as they interact

with our tools and systems.

 ● You excel at working cross-functionally or with

multiple stakeholders.

● You have excellent written and spoken English

language communication skills.

● You have had experience working in a customer,

or community-facing environment, and are able

to communicate effectively and empathetically.

● You are very detail oriented.

● You have proven experience creating

documentation and process-oriented content.

● You are willing to use GitLab.

Nice-to-haves:
● Familiarity using GitLab, Salesforce, Zendesk,

and other tools that the Community Relations

team uses.

● Experience creating and maintaining budgets.

● Change management skills.

● Experience updating website copy or making

website edits.

● Vendor-management, negotiation, and

procurement experience.

● Data-oriented and familiar with defining and

implementing key performance metrics.

Note: We strongly encourage people from
underrepresented groups to apply. Even if you do
not meet 100% of the requirements, we encourage
you to apply if you believe you would be a great fit!

Performance Indicators

● Time to approve community program

applications.

● Percentage of manual vs. automated application

processes.

● Member/contributor satisfaction for community

programs.

● Number of community program applications

solved.
 ● Ability to process a community program

application in the time promised our customers;

5-10 business days.

Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can expect the hiring

process to follow the order below. Please keep in
mind that candidates can be declined from the
position at any stage of the process.

● Qualified candidates will be invited to schedule a

30 minute screening call with one of our Global

Recruiters.
 ● Qualified candidates will attend a one 60 minute

call with the Community Operations

Manager,during which time they can expect to

provide a writing sample.

● Qualified candidates will be invited to two or

three 45 minute interviews with members of the

Community Relations Team. During this time the

candidate can expect topics on communication,

required skills for the job, and GitLab values.

Additional details about our process can be found on

our hiring page.

Job Family Levels

Depending on your experience, you will qualify for
one of the following job levels. Each level has its
own set of expectations and pay grades.

Associate Community Operations Manager

The Associate Community Operations Manager

reports to the Director, Community Relations.

Associate Community Operations Manager Job

Grade

The Associate Community Operations Manager is a

grade 5.

Associate Community Operations Manager

Responsibilities

All general responsibilities plus the following:

● Standardize communications for community

programs. As we evolve our community

programs, we'll need to make sure that we

update all of our outreach and support materials.

You will lead this effort and suggest ways we

can make our messaging more

customer-friendly and effective.

● Improve efficiency of tools. Make sure we are

using all of our current tools in the best way

possible. Become the team's expert in using

each tool and suggest improved ways to use

them to help with program goals.

Associate Community Operations Manager
Requirements

All general requirements plus the following:

● You have a passion for learning and improving.

● You are customer-centric and have a desire to

create delightful experiences for our community.

Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)

The Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)

reports to the [Director, Community
Relations](/job-families/marketing/director-of-commu
nity-relations/#director-community-relations.

Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)

Job Grade
The Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)
is a grade 6.

Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)

Responsibilities

Extends the Associate Community Operations

Manager responsibilities with the following:

● Iterate on community program workflows.

Work to improve the community programs

application workflow by iterating on what we are

already building. Proactively look for ways to

make the processes even more efficient.

● Create policies. Assist in developing common

policies, processes and resources consistent

 across all community programs, with a

handbook-first approach.

● Assess new tools. In addition to managing

existing tools, you will assess new tools to more

effectively serve the GitLab community and to

contribute to growth.

● Dive into metrics. Partner with all Program

Managers on the Community Relations team to

measure and report the success of their

programs. In doing so, you will also be working

closely with the Marketing Operations, and Data

and Analytics teams.

 ● Establish quarterly budgeting processes.

Create ways to make sure that we are effectively

planning for and using our budget. Stay up to

date with changes to accounting policies and

lead a regular planning and reporting cadence

for the Community Relations team.

Community Operations Manager (Intermediate)

Requirements

Extends that of the Associate Community

Operations Specialist with the following:

● You are extremely proactive.

● You are extremely detail-oriented.

 ● You are able to learn to use GitLab for all of your

project management work.

Senior Community Operations Manager

The Senior Community Operations Manager reports

to the Director, Community Relations.

Senior Community Operations Manager Job

Grade

The Senior Community Operations Manager is a

grade 7.

Senior Community Operations Manager

Responsibilities

Extends the Community Operations Manager

(Intermediate) responsibilities with the following:
● Lead automation processes. Significantly

contribute to the automation all the Community

Relations team's processes and workflows.

● Work cross-functionally. Proactively work

across functions with peers in other groups to

ensure collaboration on shared goals.

● Create frameworks for success. Collaborate

with all Community Relations team's Program

Managers to create a framework for community

programs, including templates and guidelines for

landing pages, contributor events, membership,

incentives, etc.
● Lead updates to community website pages.

You will proactively update community website

pages to help make it easier for our community

to find the information they need. You'll create

processes and workflows to help make sure that

the pages stay up-to-date.

● Use GitLab extensively for project

management and process improvements.

You'll use GitLab to project manage all of your

work, and will create best practices to roll out to

the rest of the Community Relations team.

Senior Community Operations Manager
Requirements

Extends that of the Community Operations Manager

(Intermediate) requirements with the following:

● You have proven leadership abilities and the

ability to influence without authority.

● You have 5+ years in project management,

program management, or similar role.

● You have experience leading large or complex,

cross-functional projects from start to finish.

● You have an analytical mindset and are

experienced with measuring the success of

projects and programs.

 ● You have rolled out new policies across an

organization, or team, with great success.

Career Ladder

The next step for the Community Operations

Manager job family is not yet defined past Senior
Community Operations Manager.

Compensation Calculator

To find out more about the compensation for this

role, please apply to a role first. Once selected for a

screening call, you'll be able to sign up here to view

our compensation calculator. Be sure to use the

same email address for both.

About GitLab

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab

open-source project. GitLab is a community project
to which over 2,200 people worldwide have
contributed. We are an active participant in this
community, trying to serve its needs and lead by
example. We have one vision: everyone can
contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to
change all creative work from read-only to read-write
so that everyone can contribute.

We value results, transparency, sharing, freedom,

efficiency, self-learning, frugality, collaboration,
directness, kindness, diversity, inclusion and
belonging, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these
values match your personality, work ethic, and
personal goals, we encourage you to visit our primer
to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of
life, our story, and what makes us truly unique.

Top 10 Reasons to Work for GitLab:

1.Mission: Everyone can contribute

2.Results: Fast growth, ambitious vision

3.Flexible Work Hours: Plan your day so you are

there for other people & have time for personal

interests

4.Transparency: Over 2,000 webpages in GitLab

handbook, GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel

5.Iteration: Empower people to be effective & have

an impact, Merge Request rate, We dogfood our

own product, Directly responsible individuals

6.Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging: A focus on

gender parity, Team Member Resource Groups,

other initiatives

7.Collaboration: Kindness, saying thanks,

intentionally organize informal communication,

no ego

8.Total Rewards: Competitive market rates for

compensation, Equity compensation, global

benefits (inclusive of office equipment)

 9.Work/Life Harmony: Flexible workday, Friends

and Family days

10. Remote Done Right: One of the world's largest

all-remote companies, prolific inventor of remote

best practices.

Roles Within the Family

Families are not democracies. Each family has its own

ways of deciding who has the power and authority within
the family unit, and which rights, privi­leges, obligations,
and roles are assigned to each family member.
In most families parents are expected to be the leaders or
executives of the family; children are expected to follow
the leadership of their parents. As chil­dren in the middle
years grow older, they will ask for, and certainly should
be allowed, more autonomy, and their opinions should be
considered when deci­sions are made; however, parents are
the final authorities.
Of course there will always be disagreements among the
generations. Your child may want to go to the beach on a
family vacation; you may want to go to the mountains. He
may think he has too many chores to do; you may think
he has just the right amount. Let him speak his mind, but
the The role of the facilitator is to:
● Build community in the group, making sure that
each person is included, heard, and valued
● Help participants bring their own experiences to
the living tradition we share
● Ensure the group begins and ends on time and
maintains its covenant
● Guide the group through the session outline
● Establish and maintain a comfortable, inclusive
tone and feeling in the session.
The facilitator is also a participant in discussion, but
the group process is the facilitator's first
consideration. They need to be present, to help keep
things on track, but it is vital that facilitators refrain
from "leading" too much. They can move
discussions along, but the members truly own the
group and have primary responsibility for its success
or failure.

Choose facilitators for their interpersonal skills and

commitment to the program. They need training and
ongoing support. Chapter 3 offers a sample,
two-session training. For ongoing support, provide
facilitators with regular, scheduled meetings with a
designated person, such as a youth advisor,
religious educator, or minister, to evaluate how the
group is going and to continue developing facilitation
skills.

It is important that youth feel a connection to

facilitators who work with them. You might ask youth
to suggest facilitators. Youth themselves make good
facilitators of small group ministry sessions.
Facilitation of small group ministry is such a powerful
tool for leadership development you will not want to
waste it by asking only adults to facilitate. You may
have youth with previous facilitation experience who
are comfortable leading entire sessions. Open the
invitation to facilitator training to all youth. Some will
be comfortable facilitating after the training; others
may not. To assist youth in growing into the role of
facilitator, consider shared facilitation.

There are different ways to share facilitation of

sessions. Youth and adults can share facilitation of
each session or alternate facilitating sessions. You
can also use shared facilitation to build leadership
skills among many members of the group. Ask for
volunteers to coordinate different parts of a session:
One participant could share an Opening, while
another introduces the focus, and yet another leads
the Check-out. If you decide to assign roles this way,
always have a back-up plan in case a participant is
for any reason unable to complete their assignment.
Make sure you are available before the session to
secure any needed resources and follow up with
preparation.
If you are a youth who will facilitate sessions,
remember there are adult advisors you can call on
for help, if needed. If a group of all youth are
meeting, adult advisors should still be present within
the building for the sake of safety. Advisors fill an
important role. They help create a safe space for the
sessions. In the context of a small group, an advisor
is both a resource and a participant. They might
share facilitation. If only youth facilitate, advisors
serve as important resources for materials,
communication, and a bridge to the wider
congregation.

One of the first duties of a facilitator is to help the

group develop a covenant. This is important
because of the relational aspect of small group
ministry. This covenant, or promise on how to be
together, can help the group move from just avoiding
disruption and conflict to demonstrating a way of
caring. Developing a covenant should be one of the
first activities of a group. Review the covenant
whenever a new person joins the group, and at least
annually. Sample Session 2, Being Together, Part II
includes guidance on creating a covenant.

● PREVIOUS: How large should a group be?

● UP: Chapter 2: Planning and Implementation
● NEXT: How can small group ministry work with a
service component.

SHARE:
ultimate decision is yours. Explain why you've made the
judgment you have, without becoming de­fensive or
apologetic. You won't always be popular in these
decisions, but your youngster is still going to love you.
Although generational hierarchies are the most obvious
ones within fami­lies, other types of hierarchies exist as
well. Sometimes they depend on gen­der. In patriarchal
societies such as ours, men have traditionally had power
over women, including within the family. Traditionally,
fathers have been the providers and authority figures, but
while they may be the final decision­makers, they often
have assumed only limited functions beyond that in the
family. Mothers have been the caretakers, responsible for
the emotional side of the family; they have kept the
family together and functioning smoothly. What this
means is that mothers and fathers are likely to hold
different posi­tions in the family hierarchy, that mothers
take primary responsibility and that fathers may have only
partial responsibility for day-to-day parental deci­sions.
Today, however, there are challenges to this traditional
gender-based struc­ture. In many families both fathers and
mothers are bringing home paychecks. And while women
still seem to shoulder the larger share of responsibility for
the day-to-day operations of the family, more fathers are
assuming greater roles in child-raising and household
duties.
It is useful to consider what roles each family member
takes within the fam­ily, and whether everyone is satisfied
with the current arrangement. For ex­ample, the oldest
children in the family may take on the parental role of
caring for their younger siblings. Or grandparents may
acquire an important place within the family by assuming
a central child-rearing role while parents work.
Think about who is responsible for what within your own
family and how the current arrangement is working. Some
responsibilities may be open to ne­gotiation, particularly if
the family does not seem to be functioning optimally. For
example, an older child may be resentful of having too
much responsibil­ity for watching over the younger
children, while the younger children may also resent the
older child playing a parental role. This will result in
arguments whenever the oldest child is left in charge.
Parents need to review what is go­ing on, discuss how the
children are feeling about it, and come up with some
alternatives.

Responsibility is a wonderful attribute to have in a

child, teenager, adult, employee, employer, you name

it! Already when your children are young, you can

assign them chores to demonstrate that members of

a family work together to maintain the home and

that Mommy is not the cleaning woman. In addition,

responsibility begets maturity and increases

self-esteem, as the child recognizes that he or she is

a capable person.

Your teens should be responsible for their

homework, their own room, and for cleaning up after

their own projects. Once they have assumed

responsibility for their possessions, you can look at

your family circumstances and evaluate what

additional responsibilities your teens can take on for

their own growth as well as for the smoother

functioning of the house. Usually, teenagers should

be able to carry out whatever chores they're given

just as well as an adult, although they may need a

training period.
In addition, teenagers should be held responsible for

their actions. If they lose something through

carelessness, they should pay for a replacement or

work to earn money to pay for it. If they forget an

appointment, they should be the ones to call,

apologize and reschedule. A parent who always

protects a teenager from experiencing the

consequences of his or her behavior is blocking the

development of responsibility.

Most teenagers are capable of watching their

younger siblings and may even babysit for other

families for pay. In general, anything your teens get

paid to do for other families (mowing the grass,

shoveling snow, washing dishes) they can also do

for their own family. Of course, the presentation is

crucial, as you don't want to come across

heavy-handed or as if you're enslaving them. If your

teenager is bogged down with homework or finals,

however, schoolwork is a primary responsibility, so

you might want to scale down your requests until the

busy academic season passes.

What responsibilities should a teenager have?

Teenagers should be held responsible for their
actions. A parent who always protects a teenager
from experiencing the consequences of his or her
behavior is blocking the development of
responsibility.

Why is teen responsibility important?

Responsibility begets maturity and increases
self-esteem, as the child recognizes that he or she is
a capable person.

What are the stages of adolescence?

Adolescence is divided into three stages: early (ages
11-14), middle (ages 15-17) and late (ages 18-21).
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What chores should a teenager have?

Your teens should be responsible for their
homework, their own room, and for cleaning up after
their own projects. You can look at your family
circumstances and evaluate what additional
responsibilities your teens can take on.

What is the role of teenager in our society?

If your teenager is bogged down with homework or
finals, schoolwork is a primary responsibility, so you
might want to scale down your requests until the
busy academic season passes.
Bullying used to be pretty straightforward. A kid (or

kids) ganged up on other kids, shouting taunts at

them, shoving them around or stealing their stuff.

But that took actual brute aggression, and most kids

weren't up to mustering that level of face-to-face

cruelty. Then along came the Internet and many

less-physically empowered kids had their "prayers"

answered: They could be despicably malicious to

classmates and peers with seeming anonymity and

impunity.

This new style of bullying is often considered more

intimidating than physical violence. Tweens and

teens (the most common victims of cyberbullying)

can't leave their bullies at school anymore.

Cyberbullies can follow them home; they can come

into their dens and bedrooms. Whether it's harassing

text messages, chat room rumors, embarrassing

e-mail blasts, hurtful online polling or incriminating

photo uploads, cyberbullies have a lot more in their

arsenal -- and are able to deliver to a much wider

audience -- than the bullies of years past.

If you suspect cyberbullying could become an issue

in your household, you have a number of strategies

available for helping your children deal with it. The

first thing you need is information.

5: Monitor Electronic Use
To deal with cyberbullying, you have to know

whether or not it's occurring. It's important that your

teens trust you and are willing to come to you if

there's an issue. When they do, you'll want to strike a

balance between overreacting and under-reacting

when you hear the news.

But if your adolescents aren't the most forthcoming

about their online activities, and you suspect

something is up, you may need to do some legwork

to find out whether there's an issue, say by

purchasing some monitoring software. To protect

your children from cyberbullies, it's important to

keep tabs on what technologies they're using, how

much they're using them and with whom they're

using them.

When it comes to Facebook, it's a good idea to have

your kids "friend" you so you can see what they're

posting and what other people are posting about

them. If you can, ask them for some of their

passwords, too, so you can keep an eye on their

online communications like IMs and e-mails. Set

limits on how much they can use the Internet and

other electronic devices -- studies have shown the

more time teens spend online, the more likely they

are to fall victim to cyberbullying.

Educate Accordingly
To provide less fodder for cyberbullies, educate your

children about the importance of maintaining

decorum and privacy both online and offline. If

there's already a cyberbully harassing your children,

you'll also need to teach them how to handle it. The

best strategy in many cases is to ignore the bullying,

or at least not react to it. While it's not always easy,

simply deleting hurtful communications or avoiding

dwelling on them can often help diminish the

cyberbully's eagerness to continue. You can also

consider approaching the parents of cyberbullies (if

you know who they are) to see if they're willing to

intervene.

If you suspect your kid is the one doing some

cyberbullying (teens often switch back and forth

between bully and bullied), explain how awful it's

probably making his or her victim feel. Also,

emphasize how cyberbullying is neither funny nor

harmless, and how their negative actions can have

serious consequences.

3: Modify Settings
You don't want strangers to be able to contact your

kids. So advise your teens to tweak their privacy

settings to restrict who can see info about them

online, especially on social networking sites like

Facebook. Also, work to limit how searchable their

personal information is, because the less potential

cyberbullies are able to access and exploit it, the

better.
You can also block or sever the lines of

communication between an existing cyberbully and

your kids by having them take steps like changing

their e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other

forms of online presence. Remind them to never

share their passwords or stay logged in to sites

when they're away from their computers.

2: Collect Evidence
If it starts to look like the cyberbullying could be

serious -- maybe your child has grown despondent,

depressed or has been threatened physically -- then

it's important to archive and print out any evidence

you can get your hands on.

Whether that's texts, e-mails or screenshots of wall

posts, document any incidents of cyberbullying so

you have a reliable record. Make sure you also keep

tabs on the dates and times of different

occurrences. You'll need the proof you collect if you

plan on going to the authorities in order to support

your case.

1: Report Violations
Not all cyberbullying is punishable under the law, but

if the bullying escalates beyond what you believe is

acceptable, contact your local police department or

the nearest FBI office. They can either help you or

point you to an appropriate law enforcement agency.

This is especially true if the cyberbullying involves

actions like password theft, identity theft or threats

of physical or sexual violence.

You can also contact your child's school. Guidance

counselors and others there may be able to help,

although not always by directly disciplining a

cyberbully if he or she acts off campus. They can

educate students about the harmfulness of

cyberbullying, amend their acceptable-use policies

to include applicable punishment clauses, and be on

the lookout for on-campus bullying. Finally, you can

cut off a bully's lines of communication by filing

complaints with Internet service providers (ISPs) or

Web site moderators who often have the power to

suspend or ban cyberbullies.