Pre-teens engaging in online bullying and racial abuse

One in four pre-teens also reported being upset or scared by something online.

Teachers are appealing to parents to clamp down on their young children's online activity as they are catching pre-teens engaging in cyberbullying and even racial abuse of their peers.

The teachers say they need to parents to act because so much of the abuse is happening outside of school hours and they are only hearing about it second hand often days or weeks after the abuse has taken place.

Today is Safer Internet Day 2022 and to mark it, CyberSafeKids has surveyed 2,500 eight- to 12-year-olds.

One of its main findings is that 28% of that age group have already experienced at least one form of bullying online from being left out of chat groups on social media or receiving hurtful messages.

Affect on school classes

However, a teacher in one Cork primary school has been forced to write to parents on several occasions, including in recent days, in relation to even more serious online abuse. The school has become aware of the pupils engaging in online bullying, harassment, exclusion and even racial abuse online.

One of the letters to parents noted while this activity was happening outside of school, while the children were using various social media platforms such as Snapchat, it was having an adverse effect on the children's behaviour in the school, and increasing tension in the classroom.

The letter notes that the frustrating thing for teachers is that they are “not seeing this in class but rather hearing it second hand and therefore it is difficult to get the whole story, days and sometimes weeks later”.

CyberSafeKids has said the Minister for Education must ensure that online safety becomes a core part of the school curriculum.

It has also questioned where the public funding and political drive is to deliver public awareness campaigns to encourage good behaviour and proper education in schools to teach kids how to protect themselves.

Among the other findings of its survey are that:

• One in four reported being upset or scared by something online.
• Some 30% said when they encountered disturbing content online, they kept it to themselves and did not tell a parent or trusted adult.
• Almost a fifth of children surveyed said they had seen something online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about.

“These findings are very worrying and highlight that online safety is an issue for everyone, not just parents,” said CyberSafeKids chief executive Alex Cooney.

“We know how easy it is for children to access highly inappropriate content such as porn, horror and extreme violence and we don’t yet fully understand how this will impact on their developing minds.”