Cyberbullying Victims: How to Protect Children From Online Bullying | Antivirus Software

 

According to anonymous Internet polls, today about half of children and adolescents hide something from their online life from their parents, and a third of them are familiar with or have personally encountered cyberbullying. And if earlier bullying took place openly at school and the victim always knew the offender, now anyone can be attacked on the Internet. Parents often find out about this rather late, when the child has already suffered great psychological damage. What types of cyberbullying schoolchildren can face on the Internet, who becomes a victim and how to protect their children - in the material from Moscow 24.

What is cyberbullying?

The concept of "cyberbullying" (from the English cyber - cyber and bullying - to bully, intimidate) came to us from the West in the late 90s and began to be actively used with the spread of the Internet and social networks. Today cyberbullying is formulated as a form of bullying, which implies aggressive behaviour towards the victim and spreads through the Internet (social networks, photo and video content, e-mails, etc.). Usually, this concept is used about children, and for adults, the wording "cyber-harassment" is more often used.

First, let's list the most popular forms of cyberbullying:

- exclusion from communication or groups (has the character of a boycott of a person on the Internet);

- Harassment, in which threats and harassment are formed by one person or group;

- outing (from the English outing - making it public), that is, the publication of personal data without the consent of the person (for example, details of the state of health or address of residence);

- Cyberstalking is one of the most dangerous forms of bullying when the persecution of a person moves from the virtual world to the real one, and the collection of information on the Internet is used for intimidation or harassment;

- fake profiles, which are formed based on open data about a person (photo, video content and data that he himself publishes). A fake (fake) account is created for a person, and false, negative and compromising information is sent on his behalf;

- trolling - deliberate social provocation or bullying in network communication.

As a part of society and its behavioural structure, bullying has always been present, suffice it to recall the Soviet film "Scarecrow", where the main character took on the blame of others, after which the whole class boycotted her. With the development of social networks, child and teenage bullying in schools has remained but has taken on new forms.

Who becomes the victim?

Many parents today do not know what their child is doing on the Internet, what sites they visit and what resources they are interested in. According to a study by Kaspersky Lab in January 2019, 73 per cent of parents with children between the ages of four and six control their online activities. At the same time, when children reach the age of seven to ten years, the level of control on the part of parents decreases, only 50 per cent of adults are already following the actions of their children on the Internet.

Today, a social media account can be started by a person at least 13 years old for Instagram and Facebook and 14 years old for VKontakte, although the recommended age for VKontakte is 16-18 years. But the majority of children are already 10-12 years old registered in social networks, putting the number "14" in the "age" column.

Any child, regardless of age, can face cyberbullying; the most difficult cases lead to mental illness and even suicide. Psychotherapist, Doctor of Medicine and Leading Research Fellow at the V.P. Serbian Lev Perezhogin notices from his own experience that bullying often occurs in parallel at school and online.

Usually, under the guise of an evil stranger, a person is hiding who knows his victim well. In the real world, it is sometimes difficult to bait because the victim can fight back. And on the Internet, you can relatively maintain anonymity and encroach on almost anyone.

Therefore, often, when already at a psychiatrist's appointment, the child is asked: "Do you know who is poisoning you?" - he replies that he does not know. But, as a rule, children guess who they are talking about, and in a further conversation with the doctor they reveal that "probably, it is Kolya and Vanya." Moreover, everything looks anonymous on the Internet. Malevolent teenagers log in from fake accounts and start sending malicious messages to the victim. Another option is when children collectively create a special account for a peer to bully them. The whole class uploads their unsightly photos and seemingly funny stories, which in fact are very offensive for a particular child.

As a result, even those who do not know the victim can join the bullying. And in small towns, where there are only five or six educational institutions for the whole city, it sometimes "walks" from school to school. It is funny and fun for teenagers to watch someone being photographed in an unsightly situation or ridiculous position, and they happily join the evil "mainstream".

There are dozens of bullying options: from banal mailings in WhatsApp in a group, where they upload a photo with the caption "check out how Igor went to the toilet and wore his pants incorrectly", to anonymous threats and insulting calls. There was a case when a mother posted a photo of her child's bathing on social networks, and many years later, when the boy grew up, his ill-wishers found these photos and sent them to his peers. And if my mother's friends admired what a cute little baby there was, then already adult schoolchildren laughed and discussed what the “little one” has since grown or not grown.

Sometimes such discussion groups are born secretly from the victim of bullying, but sooner or later the information reaches her. According to Perezhogin, usually, the victim is notified: "If you want to look at yourself, you can see how great we are talking about you here." And give a link.

The reason is simple: scoffing at someone and discussing it among themselves is not such a pleasure as poking the hero of the celebration himself.

The psychiatrist believes that there is no single pattern for the choice of the victim; there can be any reason. But according to the laws of human society, there is always a leader and an outsider, and the latter is constantly trying to annoy everyone. “The outsider has only two ways of self-affirmation: to rush upward and try to prove that you are the best, or to kick the weaker one, putting oneself one step higher. As a matter of fact, bullying is an element of preventive protection, "says Perezhogin.

The best solution is to ignore the initiator

According to research, every tenth parent notes that the topic of cyberbullying is familiar to him, while the proportion of children who heard about this problem from friends and acquaintances or encountered it personally is significantly higher - 33 per cent. Also, 50 per cent of children admit that they hide something from their Internet life from their parents.

Andrei Sidenko, an expert on online child safety and winner of the Teacher of the Year of  2013 contest, Andrei Sidenko, believes that the problem of most of those who encounter cyberbullying is trying to answer challenges and provocative questions from ill-wishers.

This is the reaction the initiator of the bullying is waiting for. Any answer and attempt to justify themselves only cause a greater desire to write more, because the ill-wisher sees in this a person's weakness.

The best solution to the problem is not to react and ignore such calls and messages, Sidenko believes. Psychotherapist Lev Perezhogin agrees with him: “The simplest version of bullying is to find a sore point and systematically press on it. Then it turns out that the goal of the bullying has been achieved, the person feels bad. One poked, two poked, but the reaction is zero, we have to lag behind him. "

Only if an adult can understand this on his own, then the child needs help. An expert on online child safety recommends, first of all, to create an account and "make friends" on the social network with your children. It is important to see what messages appear on the wall of the child, which groups he attends. But in no case in the form of surveillance (the child also has the right to privacy), but to know his interests, needs and topics that he is fond of.

Also, today there are specialized parental control programs that allow not only to restrict children from potentially dangerous resources but also to record the facts of a large number of messages and posts of the child on the social network. Thus, an adult can see the volume of messages received by the child from his phone without seeing their content (the citizen's rights to privacy of correspondence are respected). And if the number of messages has increased dramatically, it is worth talking to your child.

In no case should parents interfere with the child's correspondence and start responding to the person who offends him. Neither from the child's account, nor from his own, nor from any other. In this case, the excitement of the initiator of cyberbullying only increases, and online correspondence can last indefinitely.

The first important step in dealing with personal online harassment is to blacklist a person or an entire group of people so they won't be able to write.

You can also complain to the administrators of the social network about rudeness, insult and slander. But if cyberbullying has become large-scale and not one offender is involved in it, but the whole class, it is necessary to inform the school and the class teacher.

When threats in social networks are transferred to the real world, threatening calls and attempts to find a person begin to arrive ("I know where you live," "I will follow you," and so on) - this is already a reason to contact the police. The main thing is to collect all the evidence of threats: take screenshots of messages, save offensive photos, collages and videos, record calls. A program can be installed on the child's phone that automatically records all calls to provide the police with real evidence in the event of threats.

And most importantly, you need to build communication with your children so that they can contact you at any time. No matter what the child writes on the social network, he must know that he has a person who can protect him. One who has authority. This can be either one of the parents or an older brother, sister or teacher. There should always be a psychologically comfortable atmosphere in the family, it is a matter of trust between the child and the parent so that in the event of a dangerous situation they can tell everything to each other.

If you notice that the child has become anxious, excitable, or, conversely, has withdrawn into himself, has disturbed sleep, appetite, or problems with urination, consult a doctor. Peer pressure can lead to both nervous tics and deep depression. Psychiatrists today can remove the psychological consequences of cyberbullying in children by teaching them autogenous training or, in other words, mental hardening. The child must learn to rebuild his relationship with the world in such a way that what is happening around him does not injure him. The first psychological help can also be a call to the free support line "Kids Online"

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