Cyberbullying, a term that has invaded all forums, newspapers, television, internet news, in meetings of parents, representatives, and teachers in education centers, is a serious problem of social harassment mainly affecting children and teenagers all the world, you may wonder, do we know about cyberbullying? How to notice if our children are victims of cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is not the same as cyber-harassment, although they are similar when the harassment is carried out by adults towards children, thus, we would be talking about another crime. For this reason, this mainly helps us to understand what cyberbullying is and what it is not.
Once we know what cyberbullying is, know how to distinguish the signs that alert boys and girls to abusive behavior such as; mood swings or nervous responses, suddenly leaving social networks, estrangement from friends and family, drastic physical changes, pretending to be constantly ill, represent signs that cyberbullying is happening.
Through smartphones, the internet, online video games, cyberbullying occurs to psychologically harass young people, children, and adolescents, it should be noted that both the victims and the harasser will be the same age, their attitudes will be: blackmail, harassment, and insults from children to other children. An enhancer of these behaviors is that anonymity is maintained thanks to social networks, offering the aggressor or aggressors action to guarantee personal imbalance, causing the attacked or the victim a feeling of impotence and impunity.
It is important to pay attention, if children show irritability, sadness, anxiety in front of a computer or smartphone while using social networks, they are also clear indicators that will help determine if your son or daughter is a victim of cyberbullying. They must be in constant communication, fluid conversations, informative, that generate trust in adults and thus not maintain that complicit silence that the aggressor submits them through social networks out of fear.
Our children, when experiencing cyberbullying on social networks and bullying at school, feel that they cannot defend themselves, because of a lack of social tools, or because they feel powerless in this situation.
But also they may feel lonely, and doesn´t think they will get support from others, cause they will feel that nobody will believe them or that their parents will not take it in the right way.
It is important to create a confident environment to transmit security to your children in these situations because this may be the only way you will you´ll learn about it and help resolve it by identifying the warning signs in time and suggesting solutions.
An open and secure environment must be created, and generated confidence is key, so you can suggest to your children that in social networks they must avoid exposing privacy, use a vocabulary without insults or threats since it encourages the aggressor even more, and also be discreet with the content that can be shared on networks. social, thus we will avoid counteracting this harassment in all parts of the world.
