What is Cyberbullying?
- Sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images
- Posting sensitive, private information about another person
- Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad
- Intentionally excluding someone from an online group
How to Help Your Child
- What do I do if my child is experiencing cyberbullying?
- What do I do if my child is bullying other kids online?
Preventing Cyberbullying
- Bullying Prevention: At School and Online
- What To Do When Your Child is the Victim of Cyberbullying
- Cyberbullying & Bullying-Related Suicides: 1 Way to Help Our Digital-Age Kids
- Gay & Lesbian Youth Likely Victims of Cyberbullying
- What To Do When Your Child is the Victim of Cyberbullying
- The Internet at Home: Making it Work for You and Your Kids
- Cyberbullying: An Old Problem With a New Face
Possible Short-Term Effects:
- Anxiety
- Loneliness
- Low self-esteem
- Poor social self-competence
- Depression
- Psychosomatic symptoms
- Social withdrawal
- School refusal
- School absenteeism
- Poor academic performance
- Physical health complaints
- Running away from home
- Alcohol and drug use
- Suicide
Possible Long-Term Effects:
- High rates of depression
- Social anxiety
- Pathological perfectionism
- Greater neuroticism in adulthood
- Childhood bullying is a highly memorable experience and recollections of these events show no evidence of forgetting
Source: What Happens Over Time to Those Who Bully and Those Who are Victimized? Patricia McDougall, PhD, Tracy Vaillancourt, PhD & Shelley Hymel, PhD
- The victim has no place to hide; the bully can target them anytime and anyplace.
- Cyberbullying can involve a very wide audience (e.g. through the circulation of video clips on the internet), although the bully may not be aware of their reactions.
- The bully is relatively protected by the anonymity of electronic forms of contact, which acts as a safeguard against retaliation or sanctions.
- As with some indirect traditional bullying, the cyberbully does not usually see the response of the victim, changing the satisfactions or inhibitions normally generated by this.
- Adolescents who tended to spend more time online tended also to report that they cyberbullied or were themselves cyberbullied more frequently.
Additional Content
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1.
'Cyberbullying' Better Defined
We're seeing some big victimization numbers, but let's be sure we really know what cyberbullying is. This is important,...
Source: Connect Safely -
2.
Cyberbullying & Bullying-Related Suicides: 1 Way to Help Our Digital-Age Kids
As digital technologies increasingly tether kids to the non-stop drama of school life, adults can help them detach and...
Source: Connect Safely -
3.
How to Stop Cyberbullying
Some practical advice on how to stop and prevent cyberbullying The first things you need to know about cyberbullying...
Source: Connect Safely -
4.
What do I do if my child is experiencing cyberbullying?
Although technology allows bullies to target their victims anonymously, there are a number of steps that victims and...
Source: Education.com -
5.
Eight Escalating Steps You Can Take if Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats Persists
Introduction Like so many other facets of your kids' lives, bullying has now gone online too. If you think your kids...
Source: Norton
Is my child cyberbullied?
Possible warning signs
- Avoids the computer, cell phone, and other technological devices or appears stressed when receiving an e-mail, instant message, or text
- Withdraws from family and friends, or acts reluctant to attend school and social events
- Avoids conversations about computer use
- Exhibits signs of low self-esteem including depression and/or fear
- Grades begin to decline
- Lack of eating or sleeping
Questions and Answers on Bullying
See recent questions and answers on dealing with bullying.
