Information and Useful Advice for Educators and Parents
Things We Need to Know about Cyberbullying
Social media became the new social playground for children and youths, a playground without adults’ presence and surveillance. Consequently, aggressive behavioral norms are generated in these media while the children do not always realize how problematic these norms are.
Picking on participants in WhatsApp groups, humiliating reactions to photos and videos uploaded to Instagram and TikTok, sending offensive memes, non-consensual distribution of intimate images, boycotting, and ignoring are various manifestations of cyberbullying.
As educators and parents, we fear of extreme incidents yet it is important to be aware of the influence of the Internet on children and youths, whether they are victims, aggressors, or bystanders.
Bystanders
A child who is involved in online interactions that include harassment and abusive statements, or watching a video that abuses her/his classmate, feels anxious and helpless.
Many children report that they do not intervene in shaming and online bullying situations, because they do not know what to do and how to act.
Victims
Cyberbullying is unlimited in terms of time and space. Children were abused by their peers before the digital age, of course, but nowadays, bullying often becomes a 24/7 humiliation that invades the child’s or adolescent’s own room. The technological easiness of documenting the bullying by video and distributing disturbing images makes the problem much worse.
Cyberbullies
The available technological means of communication and distribution are more powerful than ever and the children do not always realize the power they have. Cyberbullying stems from derives lack of awareness of the intensity of their brutality. Children and youths do not understand the heavy consequences of publicity, the implications of their deeds on the victim, and their legal and criminal aspects. Thus, they eventually have no choice but to deal with the consequences of their illegal actions and the guilty feelings they would have all their life, and, in certain cases, their punishment by the State’s authorities.
What Cyberbullying Got to Do with Social Status?
69% of the youth think that those who engage in cyberbullying are ‘popular’.
Online violence among children and youth does not only stem from aggressiveness or lack of awareness, but also from the fact that it is seen as a means an effective means of improving popularity.
Due to the desired social status among the child’s peers, children do not easily admit that they are victimized by cyberbullying (“I don’t want to be regarded as weak, coward and softy”). Additionally, some bystanders might adopt the aggressive behavior, in order to adjust themselves to what they consider as a group norm.
Why don’t children report when they are victimized by cyberbullying?
“If only we knew about it…”
“How come she didn’t tell us?”
Research held in Israel and other countries suggests that children tend to complain much less about cyberbullying than about in-person bullying (Boniel-Nissim and Rolider 2015).
There are various reasons for this finding, including the children’s fear of parental intervention (“They’ll embarrass me,” “They’ll take my smartphone away,” “They’ll say it’s all my fault”); a fear that the situation might escalate; a fear of their peers who might stigmatize them as collaborators with the school administration; and because the young victims occasionally do not realize that it’s absolutely legit to complain about bullying.
What Can I Do as a Parent Who Yearns to Protect My Child from Cyberbullying?
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