Keeping your kids safe online

Thirty percent of parents of two and three-year-olds believe their children know more about the internet than they do, according to research.

Small wonder then that parents can feel they’re not up to the task of protecting their children from cyber-bullying.

But parents do have the skills — and there is no magic formula, says Conor McGuckin, assistant professor in education at Trinity College. “It comes down to basic, good old-fashioned parenting — understanding your child, knowing where they are, who they’re with and what they’re doing. You wouldn’t let your child into a playground in a new area without supervision. The same logic applies to the internet.”

Cyber-bullying is “absolutely” happening among under-12s, says McGuckin. “It’s generally about words — comment related to body image, perceived family background, amount of money people have, that nobody likes you. Increasingly, there is comment with increased sexual content.”

Forty percent of cyber-bullying victims retaliate immediately. “Things then very quickly escalate out of control. Children don’t have the emotional ability to slow it down.”

McGuckin recommends slowing down the pace at which you introduce children to technology. “A lot of First Communion-aged children spend their [Communion] money on a tablet, if they don’t already have one. Speed and sophistication of technology is getting faster but it’s not matched by a similar rate of increase in children’s emotional development and coping ability.”

Bullying has an immediate and long-term impact on psychological and emotional well being of victim, perpetrator and bystander. “The bystander can suffer in silence because they feel helpless. They know the right thing is to intervene but they don’t feel capable of doing so. It knocks their sense of self-sufficiency and self-esteem.”

He advises teaching children to tackle bullying using three steps. “You get them to the stage where they can say ‘I know this is not right — I know what I should do’.”

From this first step, the child can gradually move to ‘I can’ or ‘I could’ (tell teacher, parent). “We can then move them very easily to ‘I do’. When you get them to that stage in their mind — of ‘could you do it’ — it’s not a huge step for them to actually do it.”

Tips

* Facilitate child in having more friends. It correlates with experiencing less bullying.

* Ask: what could you do if someone said something mean?

* Instil faith that you have enough information to help him.

* Children thrive on understanding rules, and limitations.