What do you do when a group of sixth graders (11-12-year-olds) creates a video and posts it on YouTube showing six ways to kill one of their friends? The South Park-styled piece, set to the Miley Cyrus song, "True Friend" pictured fellow class member, Piper Smith, being hung, shot, pushed off a cliff, and more. This is wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. But here's a start: it’s hateful, bullying, and a total abuse of the privileges afforded by technology.

Let’s start with the fact that kids can be cruel. Especially middle-school aged kids who are smack in the middle of figuring out where they fit in the social hierarchy, and who is “in” and who is “out.” But this is no longer a world where cruelty is confined to a passed note in class. The fact is that technology has given our kids superpowers that allow them to be both invisible and everywhere at once. Anything posted on YouTube can be seen by a vast, invisible audience.And not only that, this video was posted anonymously.

This is our kids’ reality. They have powers that outstrip their judgment. And they -- and we as their parents -- have a choice: They can use these powers for good or for ill. They have the right to free speech. But that right carries a responsibility. They have the privilege of powerful tools like the Internet. But tools can be used to create or destroy. Leaving that decision unattended in the hands of pre-adolescents results in what happened to Piper Smith.

Parents, in this age where kids create as much content as they consume, it’s up to us to make sure our children understand the consequences of their actions whether it’s face-to-face or through a Facebook wall-to-wall discussion. We have to help them use the wonders of technology (and they are wonders) with responsibility and care. Our kids are creating the society they will live in. We want that to be a civil, productive, ethical, responsible society. We want them to use common sense.

Talk to your kids today about their online and mobile lives. Tell them your values. Tell them that the Golden Rule applies everywhere and to everyone. We can’t hand our kids the keys to the kingdom without insuring that they will be good caretakers and creators of the world they are forming -- one text, one email, and one video at a time.