5 Ways To Help Children With Cyberbullying
This is how you can help children with cyberbullying. When you’re being bullied, the mindset is “I’m the victim”, so replace that with “they’re just teasing me” and learn to ignore them. Everyone has teased someone else in their life. We’ve all thought bad thoughts about ourselves and other people. Sometimes, in a fit of anger, we’re so insecure, filled with fear, we want something bad to happen to a loved one.
Recently, I realised how important it is to encourage mature thinking. When I’m in an argument with my partner, my child, or my friend. We both are losing out because maybe we’re too immature to recognise what’s going on. The argument is the energy thief, not me and them.
In the same way as Cyberbullying, the language we now use is blowing it out of proportion. Statistics confirm very high incidences taking place worldwide. The UNISA study released in 2012 confirmed that 34% of children in grades 8-12 surveyed were bullied, while 23% admitted to having bullied another. The same study found that over 55% have experienced emotional or traditional bullying.
In adults, we call this harassment. When adult harassment gets out of hand, we approach the SAPS for assistance. They can warn the person; however, in most cases, they will suggest you get a protection order from a court. Children cannot do this. Children may feel helpless because of the constant barrage of attacks, often from anonymous sources.
How Parents Can Help Children With Cyberbullying
- Do not respond to cyberbullying messages.
- Block communication with cyberbullies.
- Keep the messages and report cyberbullying to a trusted adult.
- Refuse to pass along cyberbullying messages about others.
- Stand up and tell friends to stop cyberbullying.
- Encourage your school to conduct cyberbullying prevention education.
When you don’t respond to cyberbullying messages, you don’t give away your energy. You also do not give the bully and affirmation or confirmation that their actions are having an effect on you.
When you block messages from cyberbullies, you immediately stop them in their tracks. They are unable to reach you and may set-up other profiles to try and contact you again. So continue to block them and report them to the platforms you are using like Facebook or WhatsApp.
Keep screenshots of the messages and report them to an adult or even the police. This is crucial because after you block messages or report them as spam, the apps usually delete the messages from your inbox.
Do not pass along the cyberbully’s messages to others. This just makes more people focus on the bully, giving them more attention in the short term.
Take a stand and tell friends and family to stop giving cyberbullyies attention, and to stop doing it themselves if they every felt angry at someone online.
For parents, you can ask your children’s school to conduct a cyberbullying prevention campaign. There are many resources available on cyberbullying for teachers to use in their schools.
Many news articles have created a great fear among parents and children about the issue of cyberbullying. To this extent, people feel overwhelmed. With the barrage of stories increasing in the media, there is a learned helplessness that emerges over time. Nobody takes any real action because posting a comment or liking the status is deemed action. This makes it even more difficult how you can help children with cyberbullying.
So I’m not recommending you ignore the news media about cyberbullying but maybe focus more on the solutions, the practical steps you can take, especially if you are a parent of teenage children who are all now using mobile phones.