Author: Colin Holtzinger, M.S.

When your child fell down and scraped her knee, you were there to kiss her boo-boo. You were there on his first day of school and organized playdates, birthday parties, and all social events. You were there when your child felt rejected, disappointed, frustrated, and excited to finally find a good friend. The social world is hard to navigate for everyone; it can be filled with hurts, desire, rejection, loss, betrayal, confusion, embarrassment, competition, and frustration. But what happens as your teenager grows up and stops wanting you to be around as much? When he needs to make decisions on his own, to fall down and pick himself back up? How do you support kids in navigating a social world now that they are older and using technology? And when do you intervene to protect them from something unsafe that they can’t handle on their own?

These tough questions are the stuff of parenthood, and if you are asking yourself these questions, you are on the right track. There is not one answer for everyone, but falling back on your parenting principles can help you chart a course through the complicated aspects of socializing online and the harm of cyberbullying.

1.) Reflect Feelings

If you feel that your child is being cyberbullied, and you notice he is hurt, offer a safe space to listen. This is easier said than done, especially if you are anxious and worried yourself. But, see if you can put your own worries on hold and turn on your curiosity. Offer a space to talk to them, listen, and support them. Try to understand his feelings and point-of-view and reflect your understanding back to him so he knows you get it and can help appreciate the feelings involved.

2.) Co-Create Guidelines for Safety and Promote Social Responsibility, Emotional Maturity, and Self-Awareness

Work through it together, if possible. Teenagers are at a developmental age where they may be pushing for autonomy; try to ask questions and be direct and honest about your concerns. Do they notice how these online interactions make them feel? The online world requires social responsibility, emotional maturity, and self-awareness. Give your child the responsibility you think she can handle and provide those guard rails and some rules (even if she doesn’t necessarily like them) to keep them safe. If your child is mature enough and at an older developmental age, you can co-create some cyber-guidelines together. If co-creating rules doesn’t work, provide the rules, and explain your reasoning. Do so in a way that models and helps your child learn how to think about his own emotional safety in online forums. In short, try to promote in them the traits of social responsibility, emotional maturity, and self-awareness.

3.) Recognize the Different Impact of “Online”

It might be helpful as a parent to recognize the ways that online bullying is different than in-person bullying. Cyberbullying is defined as an intentional repetitive aggressive act that harms a specific designated target through electronic contact (Hutson, 2016). It is especially harmful because it has these traits (Pacer, 2020):

• Wider Audience: It is easier to spread the put-down to a wider audience.
• Anonymity: There is often a sense of anonymity online so the person who is launching the attack may feel less inhibited and may not realize the serious harm that they are causing because the person who is being harmed is also not immediately visible.
• Persistent: The use of fast communication makes it so attacks can happen all the time, and most students are connected to technology through-out the day, meaning there is no break from it.
• Permanent and Invasive: When someone posts something online, it can be there forever. When someone crosses a boundary and posts something private and personal about someone else, such as a private photo or personal information, this type of invasiveness is never-ending because the post can remain up.
• Harder to detect: Your child may not tell you he is being bullied and this makes it especially difficult to help them.

4.) Talk to Your Child and Seek Help from School Administrators and Law Enforcement if it is Serious

If you suspect your child is getting cyberbullied, talk to her about it and help identify the harm, the violation that is being caused, so you can work together to restore a sense of safety and healthy boundaries. Talk to him about getting help to take down posts and involve school administrators and/or law enforcement if it is serious. Talk to your kids about taking breaks from technology so the attacks are not so persistent. But most of all, help him process his feelings by listening to his sense of rejection, humiliation, disappointment, mortification, loss, betrayal, anger, frustration, confusion, and sadness. Talk to her about who true friends are, what a healthy relationship is and is not, who is important to listen to, and who you can try to ignore. Because at the end of the day, a good friendship doesn’t involve bullying or intimidation.

5.) We Are Here for You!

Navigating the social world is never easy. We all want friends who are close to us, and we don’t want to be embarrassed and put-down by others. Adding the elements of technology to the teenager’s difficult task of developing a social identity makes things more complicated than they used to be. Still, the same parenting principles apply. You need to protect your children while giving them the responsibilities and autonomy they can handle and need in order to grow. Listen and reflect back your child’s feelings so they can develop emotional maturity and self-awareness. Talk to them about social responsibility, boundaries, safety, and what constitutes healthy relationships. And remember, we are always here to listen to your concerns and help you, as a parent, traverse the tricky terrain of cyber-communication and your teenager’s social and emotional development. Contact us today if you are in need of additional support.