Everything That You Need to Know About Cyberbullying in Schools

Taking place of the traditional bullying, cyberbullying is everywhere out in the space now. Especially, wherein the old days, bullying was practiced in the playground of the schools, it is taking its place everywhere. According to a survey by Cyberbullying Research Center, almost every year in middle and high school, 24% of the kids are cyberbullied and the percentage is increasing day by day.

As cyberbullying in schools is growing, teachers and parents need to take the necessary steps to keep a check on this matter. What is fun for one kid might be too dangerous for another. Both parents and teachers need to recognize what and how cyberbullying is practiced around them and when to take notice even when your kid is taking it easy.

Forms of Cyberbullying in Schools

Cyberbullying generally is a term used to identify an incident where someone torments, threatens, harasses, or humiliates the other person through the use of technology. This can include social media sites, websites, forums and blogs, emails, text messages, and instant messaging. Unlike face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying can be manifested in many forms such as:

·Outing

Sharing someone’s personal and humiliating information with everyone to publicly humiliate the other person is outing. It can include emails, text messages, emails, or videos that are humiliating about that person.

·Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking is all about intimidating, harassing, and threatening someone through the use of technology. They usually keep records of their victims and attack when the time comes. These are usually strangers who first make a good rapport with the teenagers and then pursue them in doing wrong things.

·Trickery

Trickery is somehow the same as outing but in this case, the bully comes closer to the victim to extract any private humiliating information by gaining trust. Once they get their hands on something like that, they go on sharing it with everyone else.

·Trolling

It is one of the oldest cyberbullying technique. It is the deliberate act of provoking someone’s anger to get something bad out of him. When the person says insulting and humiliating things, those are used to bully him. It usually happens on social media sites where people make fun of someone deliberately to get him to say things in anger.

·Impersonation

Using fake accounts or profile to impersonate the victim and then posting inappropriate content on behalf of the victim is impersonation. While some people think of it as prank only, but deliberately posting wrong stuff on behalf of someone has a great impact on their lives. Because, once there is something live on the internet, there is no way to control it then.

Here are some more: https://www.secureteen.com/cyberbullying/types-of-cyberbullying

All of these and a lot more types of cyberbullying are being practiced at schools. When it all goes unnoticed by the parents and teachers, there is no way to control the consequences.

What Should School Management Do?

School is the center of kids’ lives for so long. Although, cyberbullying takes place all around the clock but is usually is manifested at schools first. And the effect can also be seen in their academics. Students often fail to focus on their studies because of the cyberbullying going on in their lives. So, here are some of the things can school can do to control this situation:

Take it Seriously

The very first thing that every school management needs to do is to take the matter in serious consideration. It is not just about kids being kids anymore, we have to make sure that kids are no on the path of cyberbullying for the sake of their fun.

School management should get themselves familiar with social media sites to differentiate between just fun and cyberbullying. If they are not familiar with it, they might not understand the way kids are involved in cyberbullying. The same goes for the parents. They should also educate themselves about the latest apps their kids are using.

Recognize the Signs

Know the emotional state of your students at every step of their school life. Does someone feel depressed? Is someone losing the grades suddenly? Small changes in your students can tell you about the bigger changes their life is facing. They can have regular evaluation programs to keep tabs on students’ mental health and to make sure they are not frustrated about anything.

Encourage Students to Report

Schools should say it out loud that it is in their policies to protect their students no matter what the issue is. Along with it, teachers should exhibit a helping and open attitude to the students where the students feel like they can share everything with them.

Educate them properly in school that it is not okay to silently suffer from anything wrong. They should report as early as possible to tackle the situation in a better way.

The Right Response

Schools should plan the right path to have control of this situation. If any case has been exposed, there should be counseling for both the victim and the bully. Both should be taught about the difference between right and wrong as they are part of a school.

Along with this, the school must have educational programs to make sure kids understand the difference between right and wrong when using technology for the study purpose.

Parental Control App for Parents

Parents also need to play an effective role in dealing with cyberbullying in schools. They must also keep an eye on their kids and educate them accordingly about the right and wrong of the technology.

Also, the use of a parental control app can help a lot in knowing when your kid is doing the wrong thing or is suffering from something. When you know their social media platform activities, you will get the idea of what sort of things are they doing.

The right time to teach them about technology is when they are given access to it. Also, encourage them to talk to you first whenever they are in trouble. After that, monitoring should be done to make sure they are not getting themselves in any trouble because they are just kids.