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Studies show cyberbullying affects millions of adolescents and young adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year labeled "electronic aggression" -- its term for cyberbullying -- an emerging public-health problem.

"It's not really the schoolyard thug character" in some cases, said Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, a research and professional development organization in Eugene, Ore. "It's the in-crowd kids bullying those who don't rank high enough."What fuels cyberbullying is "status in schools -- popularity, hierarchies, who's cool, who's not," said Danah Boyd, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School who studies teens' behavior on MySpace, Facebook and other social-networking sites.

Cyberbullying has impelled lawmakers, especially at the state level, to either pass anti-bullying laws that encompass cyberbullying or add cyberbullying to existing statutes. Some laws are propelled by a mix of concern about electronic bullying and online sexual predators.

Nancy Willard, author of "An Educators Guide to Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats" breaks down cyberbullying into the following categories: Flaming. Online fights using electronic messages with angry or vulgar language. Harassment. Repeatedly sending nasty, mean, an insulting messages. Denigration. "Dissing" someone online. Sending or posting gossip or rumors about a person to damage his or her reputation or friendships. Impersonation. Pretending to be someone else and sending or posting material to get that person in trouble or damage their reputation. Outing. Sharing someone's secrets or embarrassing information or images online. Trickery. Tricking someone into revealing secrets or embarrassing information and then sharing it online. Exclusion. Intentionally and cruelly excluding someone. Cyberstalking. Repeated, intense harassment and denigration that includes threats or creates significant fear (Willard, 2006).

1. Identify and blockFirst, ask your child not to respond or retaliate, no matter how tempting it may be to fight back. If you can identify who's cyberbullying your child, block any further communications.

2. Set boundariesYou, not your kids, should also contact the bully (or bullies) and demand the offending behavior stop

3. File a complaint Most cyberbullying behavior -- harassment, threats, invasion of privacy, stalking -- are violations of a web site or Internet service provider's "terms of service."

Tech companies are releasing new software products that monitor and police kids' Internet use, helping them avoid cyberbullying and letting parents know when it's occurring. Internet monitoring software like CyberBully Alert lets kids notify parents when they're being bullied and takes a screen shot of the computer when a child clicks an alert icon. Programs like CyberPatrol and Spector allow parents to keep tabs on everything kids do on MySpace and Facebook, and keep screen snapshots and a record of what kids write in chat and instant messages.

Using these programs, parents can also block Web sites and downloads of movies, music or images. Verizon announced in June that it will begin offering similar free security tools for parents. Internet security software maker Symantec has an online tool it will preview to some parents next month that will notify them by text message when a child attempts to access a forbidden site. The tool, code-named Watchdog until its official release, also lets parents control who is on the child’s buddy list. Symantec offers online tips at its Norton Family Resource Center.

software maker CyberPatrol is releasing a series of Internet videos for parents.