SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
5 Mar 2015

How to protect kids from cyberbullying?

Do you know what your children are doing when holding smartphone or tablet in hands? Maybe everything is fine and they are just watching movies or playing game. But maybe it’s not, and right now someone is bullying your kid in online chat. And you never know, if you don’t explore your kids’ online life.

Cyberbullying is one of the unpleasant effects of hyper-socialization that the Internet as a whole – and social networks in particular – bring us. For those who are not familiar with this phenomenon: Cyberbullying is online communication with the intent to abuse or degrade. More specifically, to abuse or degrade kids.

Unfortunately, cyberbullying has become very common all over the world. Nearly half of children have been bullied online; every 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once. “The Internet brings a lot of benefits, but unfortunately it also allows certain people to unleash their destructive human traits, and cyberbullying has become a widespread problem today. For its victims, the psychological damage can be massive and long-lasting. There’s probably no purely technological answer, but we must talk about it to raise awareness of this issue and help young people and their parents safely make the most of the good things the Internet has to offer.” — security expert said.

Modern children and teenagers are deeply immersed in the virtual communications world, even deeper than adults. They take everything that happens to them online very seriously. In contrast to adults, youngsters have weaker psychological defence mechanisms, or none at all. Remember how many times in your life online conversations made you feel angry, abused, or upset. Imagine what kids feel when face something similar.

Adults can choose their behaviour. Sometimes they want to relax and act thoughtlessly, like kids. But in general, they know how to act like adults. Kids always act like kids. And this is not bad; this is totally normal. Kids should be curious and experiment to find out what our world is about. The point is, sometimes this behaviour could be dangerous and parents must help their children to solve problems.

A big part of the problem is that parents are rarely aware of cyberbullying. Despite the fact 2/3 of children and teenagers consider online bullying a real problem, only few of them will inform a parent or trusted adult of their abuse. So what should adults do to protect their kids from psychological traumas due to cyberbullying?

There are some tips:

  1.     First, be patient, it will take time. Like every serious issue, problems with cyberbullying can’t be solved in a couple of minutes.
  2.     Don’t wait when you child come to you and tell about problem. Maybe it won’t happen at all. You should be the one who starts this conversation
  3.     Of course, each person has a right to privacy. But this is not a reason to neglect your child’s online activity. Learn what your kids do in social networks. For a start, add them to your friends list in every social network in which you both have accounts. As few as 20% of parents do this — let’s make this figure better.
  4.     Talk to your children about cyberbullying, tell them they should come to you if/when they face this problem. Explain that cyberbullying is a commonly encountered problem. It could help your kid realize there’s nothing wrong with him personally.
  5.     Never use prohibition. Taking away a kid’s phone or disconnecting his devices from the Internet won’t help. Actually, such prohibitions are what your child is afraid of and why they wouldn’t tell you about cyberbullying to begin with.
  6.     Talk to your kid about basic online security and privacy. Show him how to change privacy settings in social networks to prevent strangers from seeing his private data.
  7.     To protect children as efficiently as possible, use parental control and secure applications.
Tags:
data protection
Source:
Kaspersky Daily
Author:
Marvin the Robot
2579
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015