Work with your child. Bullying and cyberbullying usually involve a loss of dignity or control over a social situation, and involving your child in finding solutions helps him or her regain that. The second reason is about context. Because the bullying is almost always related to school life and our kids understand the situation and context better than parents ever can, their perspective is key to getting to the bottom of the situation and working out a solution.
You may need to have private conversations with others, but let your child know if you do, and report back. Respond thoughtfully, not fast. A lot of cyberbullying involves somebody getting marginalized put down and excluded , which the bully thinks increases his or her power or status.
More than one perspective needed. Sometimes kids let themselves get pulled into chain reactions, and often what we see online is only one side of or part of the story. What victims say helps most is to be heard — really listened to — either by a friend or an adult who cares. Just by being heard respectfully, a child is often well on the way to healing. The ultimate goal is restored self-respect and greater resilience in your child.
This, not getting someone punished, is the best focus for resolving the problem and helping your child heal. What your child needs most is to regain a sense of dignity.
Sometimes that means standing up to the bully, sometimes not. Together, you and your child can figure out how to get there. They may start to think that the only way to escape the torment is through suicide. Because the risks associated with cyberbullying are so significant, it's important that parents take steps to prevent cyberbullying in their kids' lives.
If your tween or teen is having suicidal thoughts, they can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If they are in immediate danger, call While there is no foolproof way to prevent your child from ever being cyberbullied, there are things you can do together to reduce the likelihood they will be targeted.
This includes implementing safety measures as well as having ongoing conversations about cyberbullying. You need to discuss what cyberbullying is, the risks associated with experiencing it, and how it can escalate.
It's also important to talk to your tweens and teens about how to use social media safely and responsibly and what they should do if they are bullied online. When it comes to preventing cyberbullying, and similar behaviors like catfishing , it's important that your child use passwords on everything.
Passwords are one of the most effective ways to protect accounts and devices. Emphasize that your child should never share their passwords with anyone, including their best friend.
Even though they may trust that friend implicitly, the reality is that friends come and go and there is no guarantee they are going to be friends forever. No matter what your teen does online, make sure they are aware of the privacy settings and tools offered by the organization. Go through each account with your child and help them set their privacy settings to the most secure settings.
This means making accounts private, preventing people from tagging them, requiring other people to get permission before sharing one of their photos, and so on. Kids should never share their address, cell phone number, or email address online. They should be careful about sharing too much information about where they go to school, especially if they have friends or followers online that they don't know really well.
Remind them that people are not always who they claim to be online. Even though the profile photo is of a teenage girl, that doesn't mean the person behind the account is actually a teenage girl.
It could be someone pretending to be a young girl in order to gather information on other teens. Some smartphones allow users to share their location with friends. This means that if they share their location with people, these people will always know where they are.
Have a discussion with your child about who they can share their location with or if they can share it at all. Likewise, some photos taken with smartphones already contain geotags that indicate where the photo was taken.
People can use these photos to determine your child's location, even if they never mention where the photo was taken.
Your child needs to be mindful about which photos they are sharing and when. For instance, you may want them to refrain from posting vacation pictures until you have returned from vacation. This way, you are not letting the entire online world know that no one is at your home for the next two weeks.
Help your tweens and teens get in the habit of taking some time before posting. For instance, they could create a post offline and then come back to it in an hour and decide if they still want to post it.
Doing so will keep them from posting things that they may later regret. Cyberbullies may take what your child posted and use it against them in some way, so it might be helpful to encourage your child to take time to think before posting. Of course, if someone wants to use something against them, it won't necessarily matter what the content is.
But by taking their time to craft a post, your child will be able to think through what they are posting and determine whether or not it's something they want to say publicly. This is a good practice for kids in order to maintain a healthy relationship with social media. You also need to teach your tween or teen how to practice digital etiquette. Using social media and other online tools is a privilege, not a right, and one that can be taken away if they are unable to use it responsibly.
Every month or so, sit down with your tween or teen and go through their social media accounts. Together, determine what posts may need to be deleted from their account. This exercise is especially important as they prepare to apply to college or look for a new job. Many times, college recruiters and hiring managers will look through an applicant's social media accounts to get a feel for their personality and character.
Together along with your teen, be sure your teen's posts and photos are sending the message they want others to receive. Remind your tween or teen that when they are using public computers or laptops at school or the library, they should log out of any account they use. This includes logging out of email, social media accounts, their school account, Amazon account, and any other account they may open.
Simply closing the tab is not enough. If you are mean to others online, it reinforces the idea that that kind of behavior is acceptable. Log out of your accounts on public computers: Similar to not sharing your passwords, don't give anyone the slightest chance to pose as you or to share false information.
Also, by staying logged in, you run the risk of the bully changing your password and locking you out for a period of time. Source: StopItCyberbully. Very confident. Somewhat confident. Not very confident. Very unconfident. One Student Athlete's Journey. Camp Lessons
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