How To Stop Cyberbullying? Top 8 Tips To Stop Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can happen anywhere, and it has become hard for parents to keep their kids safe online. Kids need the internet for most of their activities, and it becomes hard for parents to keep an eye on their internet activities.

Parents are worried about their kids being victims of cyberbullying or being the bully themselves. Bullying is detrimental for both bully and victim; hence, parents want to protect their kids from being bullies or victims of a bully.

Parents try different ways to prevent their kids from being bullied online. There are many cyberbullying laws that you should know, which help you to keep your kids safe whenever they face any bullying situation. Kids can get bullied or bully others, so it needs to take all the necessary steps to stop cyberbullying.

Why Should You Stop Cyberbullying?

As I mentioned earlier, cyberbullying is detrimental for both the bully and the victim; hence, it becomes essential to stop cyberbullying. A few reasons to stop cyberbullying online as tips for parents are:

• To prevent kids from having any mental health problems.
• Secure kids from getting into violent activities.
• To help kids love and accept themselves.
• Make safe online activities.
• Creating a positive online environment.

Ways To Stop Cyberbullying

Parents use different ways to stop their kids from bullying others or being victims of bullying. Here are a few tips for parents to stop cyberbullying:

1. Communicate With Your Kids

Always ask your kids to communicate whenever they face any bullying issue. Communication helps solve most problems, so it’s better to communicate with each other and find a way to solve the problem. It will help if you teach your kids the effects of cyberbullying and how it affects the victim.

It would be better to treat your kids like your friends; it will help them be more open with you. Your kid will readily tell you whatever they are facing, and you should make them aware of how their bullying can affect others.

2. Ask Your Kids Not To Retaliate To Bullies

One common mistake that most kids make when they get bullied online is responding to the bully. The more kids start to react to bullies, the more they will be bullied. Kids may take some harmful action to overcome bully problems, which can land them in trouble.

Hence, you should ask your kids not to retaliate against bullies. Bullies want their victims to give them more responsibility for their actions. They become successful with their plan when you respond to a bully; it empowers the bully. So, don’t give any response to bullies and if they continue bullying, ask them to report to you or someone senior people they trust.

3. Do Not Delete Any Evidence

Another reason for the difficulty in stopping bullying is that kids delete whatever threat or harmful message they get from bullies. Kids usually get bullied through text messages, and it becomes easy for kids to delete their messages.

But, when your kid deletes all the evidence, it becomes difficult to show it whenever they need it. It's better to teach your kids the importance of saving proof.

Sometimes when the bullies go to the extreme level, it becomes essential to report the bullying problem to related authorities. And the corresponding authority will ask you to show the evidence; thereby, you should save all the required evidence. Furthermore, you may have to print out the evidence, so deleting the evidence will not be a good idea.

4. Report To The Related Authorities

There are many authorities to stop bullying activities, and it is always good to take help from related authorities. Law enforcement, school authorities, mentors, and online service providers can help you overcome the bullying problem. Many times when your kid gets bullied online, they try to hide it from you thinking they can deal with bullies themselves.

But if they become unsuccessful in dealing with bullies, they start to face mental health issues, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, no interest in school, etc. So if you notice such types of signs on your kids, it would be best for you to ask what’s happening and get help from related authorities.

5. Do Not Blame Your Kids

Many times parents blame their kids whenever they get into trouble. Because of fear of getting accused, kids try to hide their problems from you. Even when they get bullied on social media sites or any sites on the internet, they try to hide it from you.

They feel that you may blame them for being victims of cyberbullying. As a result, your kids can land themselves in big trouble.

Therefore, as a parent myself, the most critical parent guide I would like to give is not to blame your kids for any trouble without knowing the real story. Your kid’s self-esteem tends to reduce when you do not believe them and blame them for everything that happens to them.

6. Block The Bully

The perk of the online world is you can block anyone who you do not like. Compared to being bullied in real life, cyberbullying is easy to deal with as you can stop the bully. In real life, when you are being bullied, it is pretty tricky for you to get away from the bully if you are studying or working with them.

But in online bullying, whenever you find any threat messages, you can block the bully or unseen the messages. It would be best to teach your kids not to view messages from unknown people or ask them to stop the sender f they consider any violent messages. This is one of the best ways for online safety for kids.

7. Use Tools and Techniques

Another technique that you can use is using the parental control app. Parental control apps help you to know what your kids are doing on their devices. Some parental control apps have keylogger features that notify you whenever the app detects words related to bullies, suicide, etc.

Parental control apps help to maintain safe online activities among kids. These apps provide you with details of their social media activities and keep an eye on their social media activities.

You can even read your kid’s text messages from WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram using the parental control app, which helps you know what your kids are up to on their social media. Hence, parental control apps are also one of the best ways to stop cyberbullying.

8. Keep an eye on their Internet Activities.

Social media sites are not only where cyberbullying occurs; there are many other sites where cyberbullying occurs. Kids not just use the internet for social media but also for playing online video games. Many parents think that online games are safe, but cyberbullies are equally active in online gaming sites and social media sites.

You can find many fake ids on video gaming sites where people target young kids to bully and harass. Therefore, to have safer internet time, it would be better to keep an eye on your kids to ensure they are secure online.

Conclusion

To sum up, cyberbullying has been an increasing problem in this online world. Cyberbullying happens mostly on social media, as kids and teenagers own at least one social media account.

Social media is the place where you can find most of the personal information of a person. Thereby, cyberbullies use social media to bully and blackmail people. One way to stop cyberbullying among kids is by limiting their time on the internet, especially on social media.