If you’re a child of the 80s like I am, you know that our generation has had the opportunity to grow in two vastly different worlds. When we were kids, our daily activities consisted of being outside, playing with friends in the neighborhood, scraping our knees and drinking from a hose to save precious minutes of sunlight and playtime before we were called in. We were also part of the generation that saw vast improvements and technological advancements that changed the way we lived. We saw the first flatscreen TVs, the first smartphones, the first self driving cars. We are aware that with changes there will always be some that will take advantage of these new things. For example, nowadays making friends online is something that’s pretty common. While we do our best to monitor our kids' internet use, something might slip through the cracks and a child without supervision can fall prey to cyberbullying, or they could even become the cyberbully themselves.

In this blog, we will talk briefly about the effects of cyberbullying and how we can prevent it. First off, it doesn’t happen to everyone, but changes in your child’s behavior and attitudes can indicate if they are being bullied in school or online. You want your child to be honest and feel they can come to you with any problems, so you can get to the source and help them. Kids that fall prey to cyberbullying can become depressed, have anxiety and damaged self esteem. Remind your child that they are valued, loved and it’s the bullies that are the problem. 

How can we be proactive to prevent cyberbullying? Surely no one wants to wait around for it to happen to address it. 

1. The first thing you can do is become knowledgeable on the various social networking apps out there your child may be using. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat to name a few. 

2. Depending on your child’s age, you might want to consider keeping the family computer in a place everyone can reach when need be and you can personally keep an eye on your child as they navigate the internet.

3. If your child does fall victim to cyberbullying, teach them not to engage with the bully, but be sure to keep track of any messages or social media handles the bully provides. You will need these to confirm and verify that cyberbullying is indeed happening.

4. The knee jerk reaction for many of us is taking away a child’s computer or phone to prevent such things from occurring, but you will find this will only cause your child to become more secretive with their actions to prevent getting their device taken away again.

5. It’s important to also teach your kids to not engage with bullies or be part of the bullying. Teach them to not be an accomplice to cyberbullying and forward messages intended to emotionally harm another child. 

6. If the bully is being really aggressive, it might also be a good idea to block said person and make your child’s profile a little more private, so they can’t reach them.

7. We can also be proactive by reaching out to their schools through the PTA and seeing if they can incorporate some Internet Safety Awareness classes for all the students to attend and learn from. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that cyber bullying doesn’t only happen at a young age. Many adults fall victim of cyberbullying. In today’s climate as many as 27% of adults have been known to get pretty nasty with each other online. We have to remember to be better examples for our children, so they can become valuable and contributing members of society. 

At any age, if the threats online do become a problem and hostile where you fear the bully may become physically aggressive, you want to keep track of the messages and show the authorities. Normally we wouldn’t want to escalate a problem to that level, but pointing out problems like that have helped to prevent violent occurrences from happening in the past.

Need more help? Be sure to check out The Cybersmile Foundation to learn more about what we talked about today. Thank you once again for joining us in another blog entry from our family here at South Florida Speech Solutions. We are always looking for ways to help kids develop in various ways that will teach them to reach out for help when needed and not regress letting their problems overwhelm them. 

Until next time South Florida, thank you for visiting our website. Be sure to sign up to our newsletter and/or contact us with your speech related questions.