As Stephanie Fox scrolled through her daughter's Facebook page, she saw something disturbing.

A teenager was posting messages — and an image of her wrist — stating that she had enough of the bullies and planned to end it all.

“It's a visual I will never forget,” said Fox, as she talked about the February 2014 day when she called police seeking help for her daughter's Facebook friend. Brentwood police assisted the girl, and she received help, Fox said.

But the image has stuck with the Brentwood mother of four, who serves on borough council, leads the anti-bullying committee, and said she herself was bullied as a child.

Now, the story of the mother who knows some people call her a “creeper” for following her daughter's social-media usage has gone international.

Fox, her daughter Maci and some of Maci's friends appeared on a June episode of Nickelodeon's “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee” titled “The Electronic Leash: Safety vs. Privacy.”

“I think it's important for parents to monitor their kids' and their teenagers' social-network accounts and phones. There's reasons kids can't drive until a certain age. There's reasons kids can't vote until a certain age,” Fox said on the show. “Kids do not have the emotional regulation and judgment needed at times when they're hiding behind the Internet. They think it's a lot of fun and they're talking to each other and posting pictures, and it can just become unsafe real quick.”

Maci, Fox's oldest daughter, was allowed to sign up for social-media accounts at age 12, with the agreement that her mother would have the password and could view her Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook accounts.

Maci, 13, an eighth-grader in Brentwood, said she's OK with the idea.

“I think it's right that they should be able to,” her friend, Sydney Gilchrist, 14, a ninth-grader in Brentwood who also was on “Nick News,” added.

“Kids need to realize the long-term effects of their actions,” Stephanie Fox said. “It's easy to pick on someone on social media.”

She looks at her daughter's social-media accounts to check in on Maci's actions and status and also to keep an eye out on her world.

A news story that appeared on WPXI-TV, Channel 11, about Fox finding the disturbing posting in February 2014 on her daughter's Facebook news feed was found by Lucky Duck Productions, which produces “Nick News.” Someone from the production company contacted Fox in January regarding a show it was doing on cyber bullying, she said.

By this February, Fox's home had been turned into a Hollywood-style production studio for a 12-hour shoot — for what would turn out to be six minutes on television.

“They were here all day and I mean all day,” Fox said. “Every room looked like a production studio.”

A two-man film crew, along with the producer, arrived at Fox's Brentwood home on Feb. 3 to shoot the segment.

Sydney and Maci said they were nervous about the cameras but spoke openly about their parents viewing their social-media accounts.

Having the opportunity to be on Nickelodeon was “pretty cool,” said Maci, but the main focus, her mother said, was sharing the message with a broader audience.

“It was a really good opportunity,” Stephanie Fox said. “It sheds light to the fact that this is very real and cyber bullying happens every day.”

“It's the mob mentality,” she said. “The Internet makes it 10 times worse.”

As the chairwoman of Brentwood's anti-bullying committee, Fox lobbied to get borough leaders to adopt an anti-bullying ordinance that makes parents responsible for their child's actions. She also has partnered with the Brentwood Borough School District to bring in a speaker this year to talk about the dangers of bullying with students.

A copy of the borough's anti-bullying ordinance will be mailed to every parent in the district at the start of the 2015-16 school year, Fox said.

Stephanie Fox said she received numerous emails and phone calls after the airing of the “Nick News” episode.

“If someone is getting bullied, maybe they will get help because of this,” Sydney said.

Stephanie Hacke is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-388-5818 or shacke@tribweb.com.

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