Cyber-bullying seems like one of those things that media regularly exploits to gain attention, kind of like Kanye West dissing Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs. It has been seven years but no one has been able to let go of that one. Yet it is the sad truth that no one, other than the family and friends of the victims of cyber bullying understands that.
Statistics on Cyber-Bullying
According to a number of studies conducted in the past decade or so, 37% of teens between the ages of 11 and 17 were reported to have been bullied in 2014, i.e. a staggering 11% hike from the 16% in 2013. The horror doesn’t end here. According to the latest studies alone, this number has hiked from 37% average to 40% just for the month of August in 2015.
According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), suicide is one of the leading cause of death among young adults and teenagers with a recorded estimate of 4,400 deaths annuals. Additionally, more than 14% high school students have considered killing themselves and almost 7% have attempted it.
According to a study conducted by Yale University, USA victims of cyber-bullying are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider bullying than non-victims. Similarly, according to them 10 to 14 year old girls who are being bullied are more prone to killing themselves.
With more the 6 high profile cases in the last decade alone and the ever increasing number of teenagers joining various social media outlets every single day, Cyber-bullying is an evil that is not going to go away anytime soon. Therefore, in this time and age, parents need to educate themselves about how to deal with the cyber-bullying, how their child is a part of it and what they can do to put a stop to it.
How to Keep Your Child from Being Cyber-Bullied?
Hopefully that gave you a slight insight into this grave matter. Thus, the question arises, what should the parents or a loved one should do to protect someone from being cyber bullied? Courtesy of technology, such situations can be dealt with before it is too late. Countless monitoring apps such as TheOneSpy, mSpy, xnSpy and MobiStealth make it easier for parents and guardians to look for the signs that things are getting a little bit grave for their children:
- Your Child Seems Depressed. Have you noticed that your teenager just plays around with the food instead of eating it? Seems sad and quiet most of the time? Stays in his or her room all the time? Has no social life? Well. All the fore-mentioned scenarios point to one thing, your child is depressed. Depression is the first sign that that you should probably step in. Meaning that you should look into their affairs to make sure that your child isn’t being cyber bullied. When your child is not speaking out and suffering through an inner turmoil, it is much worst, since it can lead to suicidal thoughts more often than not. Such behaviour is like a sign that you should invest in monitoring applications immediately since the situation might be graver than you originally thought.
- Text Messaging. Teens, even though they crave privacy, tend to share every single bit of their life with their friends and to them, text messaging seems like the ideal way to do so. According to them it reduces the chances to their parents listening in to their conversations, making text messaging the perfect medium for them to share their inner thoughts and true feelings. Mobile monitoring apps are great for this purpose since parents can read actual texts being received and sent by their teen in order to monitor them. Therefore, if you see your child sending texts like “Life sucks”, “I want to die”, etc. It is high time that you talk to your child. Nobody is moved to kill themselves overnight. Thus, if you learn about such an occurrence sooner, you can help prevent it.
- Internet Browsing History. Internet Browsing is the ground zero of all the problems in your teenager’s life. So, it might be a good place to begin. It is also the place where you can find if your child has been looking up information on ways to commit suicide. Also, it might be able to give you an idea about what may or may not be going on in your child’s head. And you can look into your child’s search history using different monitoring apps.
- Social Media Platforms. According to a survey, the social media platform “ask.fm” was alone responsible for 9 teenage deaths in 2015. Similarly other social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are no better at it either. Whether it is a snide comment or a photo-shopped picture, it can all be used to cyber-bully your child. Comments like “Get a Life” or “You are Ugly” can be the reason for sending your teen off the deep end. During the past half a decade, 4 out of 5 people have died because of being cyber-bullied, making suicides the second highest cause of death in teenagers. Parents can look at what is going on with their children’s social lives by two means: You can befriend or follow them online OR You can monitor them via spying apps. The first one is pretty unlikely since teenagers like privacy to authority figures therefore the best scenario would be the second one to make sure that your child is safe from the clutches of cyber bullies.
- WhatsApp and Line Chat Logs. If you do not find anything suspicious that might serve as a reason for your teenager seeming down and depressed on the Internet Browsing History, Text Messages, and their social media accounts, then their Line and WhatsApp Logs are the way to go. These conversations tend to be deeper and give full disclosure as to what is going on in your child’s life. Therefore monitoring them is also in your favour.
The Bottom Line
Life is a beautiful gift that ceases to feel like a gift when a child feels like the entire world is against them. Such consequences are difficult for even an adult to bear, let alone a child who is in the prime of his or her life. Using these and many other methods, parents and guardians can easily learn what is going through their children’s’ mind and identify the signs and consequences that are causing the child distress. Therefore it is crucial that parents know what to look for.
Author Bio: Angelica Dowson is an author, and content manager at TheOneSpy. She entirely fills in with deep research on cyber bullying, trolling, employee legal facts, social media and Instant messengers. You can follow her on twitter @angelicadowson2
