Educating the kids about the consequences (losing their ISP or IM accounts) helps. Teaching them to respect others and to take a stand against bullying of all kinds helps too.
How can you stop it once it starts?
Because their motives differ, the solutions and responses to each type of cyber bullying incident has to differ too. Unfortunately, there is no "one size fits all" when cyber bullying is concerned. Only two of the types of cyber bullies have something in common with the traditional schoolyard bully. Experts who understand schoolyard bullying often misunderstand cyber bullying, thinking it is just another method of bullying. But the motives and the nature of cyber communications, as well as the demographic and profile of a cyber bully differ from their offline counterpart.
What is the school's role in this?
When schools try and get involved by disciplining the student for cyber bullying actions that took place off-campus and outside of school hours, they are often sued for exceeding their authority and violating the student's free speech right. They also, often lose. Schools can be very effective brokers in working with the parents to stop and remedy cyber bullying situations. They can also educate the students on cyber ethics and the law. If schools are creative, they can sometimes avoid the claim that their actions exceeded their legal authority for off-campus cyber bullying actions. We recommend that a provision is added to the school's acceptable use policy reserving the right to discipline the student for actions taken off-campus if they are intended to have an effect on a student or they adversely affect the safety and well-being of student while in school. This makes it a contractual, not a constitutional, issue.
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