Children’s Internet Safety 31 In your child, you might notice their embarrassment by the shyness they show when trying to discuss cyberbullying.They might say ‘you’ll laugh at me’ or something similar. However, there’s still that willingness to talk about it. How to support your child You can help your child by explaining that sometimes we feel silly, but that feeling will pass. If we’ve done something silly (like name-calling to join in with others/peers), realising our mistake and apologising can help repair relationships. You can ‘normalise’ this behaviour if it is accidental and not intended to be vicious.Think about how we laugh at some TV programmes that show silly human behaviour. However, it’s important to highlight that intentional hurtful behaviour is very different. Guilt Guilt is a feeling that a cyberbully is more likely to carry as they recognise they ‘did something bad’. Quite often. children will stay quiet and secretive, avoiding you. They might say things like ‘you’ll ground me’,‘you’ll get mad’,‘you’ll take away my phone’ or similar words, because they expect that you will punish them for the act of doing something bad. How to support your child We can help our children here by explaining that they made a bad choice, that the choice has consequences and that the choice they made has affected another person.This allows for a resilient feeling of being able to ‘make up for the bad choice’, which in brain terms is a healthy response to building a more compassionate child for the future. Quite often in therapy, parents are asked not to reflect too much on the aspect of ‘pointing out the victims’ feelings’ as this adds to the feeling of both guilt and shame. CYBERBULLYING cont’d continued Image by freepik.com
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