Search your own childhood memories and you will come across incidents at school where you or someone you knew was either bullied or bullied someone else, it was a bad thing and it is common and it still is, except the venue has changed. Although, cases of bullying still occur but are somewhat restricted due to the physical evidence that results in the bully getting caught. Being a parent, if you compare it to what we call cyber bullying it was better because usually the symptoms were noticeable – in the digital age it is not the case. Unless you have an open dialogue with your kids it will be very hard to figure out what exactly is happening in their lives or if they are the victims or perpetrators of cyberbullying.
If they are the victims, you might see certain behavioral changes that should raise questions in your mind. As compared to physical bullying, damage from cyber bullying is emotional and affects the mind, children might start being reclusive and or even be more aggressive, they might lack self-esteem or they might even get into fights often. Sitting down and having an occasional talk with your kid regarding their change in behavior is essential. They need to know they can talk to someone regarding their problems. The negative side to this is that by the time the behavior symptoms start showing up the damage has already been done. In order to catch something like cyberbullying in its early stages, parents will have to go high-tech to combat this menace of the digital age.
We just talked about symptoms that affect the victims of cyberbullying, but what about if your child is actually the bully? What symptoms are there if any? The fact of the matter is this is more difficult to distinguish and can be a very serious problem as if it worsens, kids can turn into juvenile delinquents and eventually if not rectified maybe even full-blown criminals. The kid who is usually the bully might show a non-caring and very assertive behavior; they usually get a kick out of the pain of others; they might even be aggressive with their friends and even with other family members their age. They usually have a hard time doing chores and will always force or coerce a sibling or friend to do it. The problem is that there usually isn’t a fixed symptom, some kids might be excellent at hiding their behavior from parents and parents usually don’t find out about their children’s cyberbullying habits until things have usually gone too far. The best way to deal with this and prevent it is parents need to keep an eye on their kid’s online activities, for this they require software that can let them do that.
We can say for certain that in both cases where the child is either a victim or the perpetrator of cyberbullying, it is essential that parents try to get information beforehand through proper monitoring. As children, these days rely heavily on smart devices such as smartphones and tablets to navigate the Internet as well as interact on social media and other IM Chats where most of these incidents of cyberbullying take place. It is essential that parents use trackmyphone and other software to keep tabs on what their kids are doing, who they are talking to, and what their conversations are. This way they can nip cyberbullying in the bud before an incident ever occurs.
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