A high school "Slut List of 2010" is causing nationwide concern amongst educators and parents. The list, featuring almost two dozen names of 13 and 14-year-old freshman girls, was widely circulated amongst students at Millburn High School in New Jersey.

Among the sexually explicit details and highly derogatory comments (supplied by Millburn-Short Hills Patch) are:

"My friends practice giving head on me because I'm a man."
" I'm so desperate and hairy that I'll give you [drugs] for free if you get with me."
"I want it so bad I'll beg you to stick it in."
"I (censored) like I blow the candles out on the menorah."
"Keeping up with the family tradition, [blank] me.... and knock me up."

Cyber-bullying is whenever kids deliberately harass someone (peers or adults) and involves any electronic technologies such as email, cell phones, page text messages, instant messaging (IM), blogs or websites. The intention is always to harm others. I'm writing today as part of a series so that parents can help their kids deal with this troubling new trend. The first step is to stop and take time to know what's happening in your child's world. The second step is to teach online safety tips to kids.

Two great sites that offer advice to parents and kids are:

http://www.WiredKids.org
http://StopCyberbullying.org

Here are few of many tips from my book The Big Book of Parenting Solutions to help you keep your kids safe online.

Hold a media talk. If your child isn't talking about cyber-bullying, don't assume he hasn't been affected. Let him know you're aware of the darker side of Cyberspace. Start the discussion: "What have you heard about..." "What are the other kids saying?" Let your child know from the start using your family computer is a privilege and comes with responsibility. That privilege will be removed immediately if your child abuses your family's rules.

Don't be too tough. This one sounds contradictory but here's the low down: A study at Clemson University found that kids often did not tell their parents about cyberbullying for fear of losing online privileges. One study found that almost 60 percent of kids did not tell their parents when someone was abusive to them online. So don't overreact or ban him from using the Internet altogether.

Monitor your computer. Do you know what your child is doing online? Does she have a Xanga, use instant messaging, have a blog, visit chat rooms, frequent game rooms? Does your kid really need that fancy cell phone with all the attachments allowing straight Internet access?

Mom and Dad, wake up: If you assume your child is using that fancy home computer to stimulate his brain, think again. The hottest new trend has kids using those keyboards to send vile, hateful and highly slanderous messages about their peers through the Internet. Once confined to playgrounds, bullying has hit cyberspace, cell phones and pagers, and it's both serious and sophisticated. So how do you protect your child from cyberbullying?

The first step is for parents to be aware of just how prevalent cyberbullying is these days. Where we once thought we just had to protect children from adult predators using the Internet, we now need to shield kids from one another.

Cyberbullying is most common around the middle school years, but is making its way into the younger set. Kids now a days are electronically savvy, but make no mistake: the behavior is all about intentionally causing another pain (bullying), and parents must be far more vigilante. The two biggest mistakes adults make is not taking children's complaints seriously, and allowing bullying in the first place.

There are some specific ways to protect kids from bullying both in cyberspace and on the playground. Parents today need a closer "electronic leash" on their kids and need to be more tuned into the cyberspace trend. This isn't about being controlling-this is good parenting. And the good news is that a recent study found that teaching children about unsafe online behavior and cyberbullying can actually reduce the impact.

Parents do make a difference! So here are solutions to start educating both you and your child about cyberbullying or if your child is cyberbullied.

It's been ten years, but I am still haunted by the memory. It was in Ottawa, Canada. I had just finished giving a keynote address on bullying to a large group of educators in Ottawa. A gentleman was quietly waiting by the stairs to speak with me. As I approached him, he silently handed me a picture of an adorable eleven-year old boy. With tears in his eyes, the man explained that the photo was his son who had hung himself because he was bullied. He said he had to talk to me. He'd listened to my speech and knew that if people had only listened to what I said about bullying, his son would be alive today. He asked me to please keep warning parents of the consequence, and then he hugged me quietly walked away.

I've carried that child's photo in my purse and shared it with hundreds of parents and educators everywhere I speak. It's my reminder that adults need to take bullying far more seriously, tune into our children closer, and step in so a child does not have deal with cold-blooded cruel attacks alone. It has got to stop and it is not.

Studies find that 160,000 children skip school every day because they fear being attacked or intimidated by other students. And this cruel behavior is only increasing with age. A recent study prepared for the American Psychological Association showed that 80 percent of middle school students admitted to bullying behavior in the prior 30 days. Research shows bullying is escalating and bullies are more likely to be aggressive and could carry a weapon.

There is also another danger as well. The United States Secret Service studied over 30 school shootings. Could they determine a profile of a school shooter? The answer was no, but they did find one commonality: each shooter had been bullied intensely by peers, and no adult ever intervened. Bullied children can become bullies.

So what do you do if your child is repeatedly bullied and your previous efforts fail and worse yet the bullying intensifies? You may have done everything you can to try and help, but the bullying does not stop. Do know that is sadly predictable. Bullying is almost always a repeated behavior. That means once a child is targeted she usually continues to be targeted. If this is your child, you must intervene. A bullied child cannot solve this problem on her own.

Here are nine things to do if your previous efforts fail and bullying intensifies.

If your child is bullied it means that peers are intentionally causing her pain. If this is happening to your child, please know that your son or daughter is not alone. By some estimates, one in seven American schoolchildren is either a bully or a victim. Reports confirm that bullying is starting at younger ages and is far more frequent and aggressive than ever before.

While you can't always be there to step in and protect your child there are ways to help your son or daughter be less likely to be victimized in the first place. I reviewed hundreds of articles on bullying to find tips to pass onto parents. I also wrote a proposal to end school bullying and violence that became SB1667 and passed into law.

Here are some of those solutions to help your child navigate a vicious social jungle and deal with bullies:

Start the talk now! Children who are embarrassed or humiliated about being bullied are unlikely to discuss it with their parents or teachers and generally suffer in silence, withdraw and try to stay away from school. So start talking to your child about bullying before it ever happens. Tell your child you are always available and recognize it is a growing problem.

Stop rescuing. Children need practice to speak up and be assertive so when the moment comes that they do need to stand up to a bully, they can. Always rescuing can create the conditions under which a child can become a victim.

Avoid areas where bullies prey. Bullying usually happens in unsupervised adult areas such as hallways, stairwells, playgrounds (under trees and equipment, in far corners), lockers, parks and bathrooms in places such as malls, schools, parks and even libraries. Teach your child "hot spots" (places most likely to be frequently by bullies), and then tell him to avoid those areas.