14 Tips To Help Parents Stop Cyber-Bullying

Bullying is an issue that can affect a child’s social life, schooling, and their emotional wellbeing. With technology and social media we are faced with cyber-bullying. Have you witnessed cyber-bullying? Have you had conversations with your children about cyber-bullying?

As parents, we want to protect our children but we can’t always do that.  That’s why it’s important for parents to teach their children to be kind and have conversations about cyber-bullying. 

In our partnership with Google, we have learned a few awesome tips to help prevent cyber-bullying.  Google’s Be Internet Awesome free program provides you with tons of great resources for both parents and educators to help teach children about digital citizenship and safety.

14 Tips To Help Parents Stop Cyber-Bullying

Here are a few tips to help parents and children stop and hopefully take steps to put an end to cyber-bullying.     

1.) Set up your computer in a common area of the home:

Make sure the computer your children use is somewhere you are able to monitor their usage without being overbearing.  Keep it out of their bedrooms and maybe into the living room.

2.) Know what’s up online:

Learn the online hangouts!  There are tons of social networking sites, apps, and so on that kids are using.  Find out which ones your child is using and become familiar with it.

3.) Read, learn and ask questions:

Read articles online or speak with parents who have experienced cyber-bullying.  Learn as much about the issue as possible.  There are some great resources for parents and teachers at Be Internet Awesome.

4.) Don’t put off having the conversations about cyber-bullying:

Talk to your children regularly about cyber-bullying and that they can come to you with questions or if something uncomfortable happens online.  Make sure they know they will not be in trouble for sharing the negative behaviors they encounter online.  Sharing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, or asking for help when unsure what to do is the brave thing to do.

5.) Teach your children how to handle a uncomfotable online inncodent:

Make sure your children know to immidently report or block any inappropriate contact.  However, they should NOT delete anything.  Before cthey block and report anyone they should take a screen shot or print out any emails or messages. 

6.) Teach your children to be smart online

Once we post something online, whether it’s a photo, comment or a message it could be online forever so it’s important to be a positive presence online like you would in real life. 

7.) Think before your post

Always think before posting something online.  Like in real life there are times online when it’s best to say nothing at all.  The worst thing we can do is react without thinking and post something we regret later. 

8.) Keep your secrets safe online and offline

Don’t share personal information such as email address, home address, school, phone numbers, passwords, or important documents with strangers. 

9.) Respect other people’s choices

Be respectful of other people and their privacy choices even if they are not the ones you’d make for yourself. 

10.) Know about online scams

It’s easy to think online scams won’t happen to you, but they can happen to anyone.  So be sure to know about and teach your children about different online scams.  Remember the old saying, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

11.) Set up privacy controls

You can set up privacy controls to help restrict people you don’t know from viewing your profile.  Stick with trusted friends. 

12.) Do a Google search

Try doing a Google search for yourself or your children to see what’s out there.  If you look at something that could possibly be sued by cyber-bullies then take the necessary steps to have it removed. 

Be a good role model and be a positive online presence.

13.) Raise awareness for this year’s Safer Internet Day (SID)

If you didn’t already know this year’s Safer Internet Day (SID) celebrations will be happening on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. The slogan for this year is “Together for a Better Internet” which is a call to action to join together for a better internet for everyone, especially our children.

We too can come together for a Better Internet with our families by using Be Internet Awesome starting with the programs NEW Family Guide and encouraging our children to put their skills to the test with Interland at g.co/Interland. 

Talk to other parents and your child’s school about Google’s Be Internet Aware resources. It’s a great time to Come Together for a Better Internet with our families and schools.

14.) Stay in the know

You can download Google’s Family Link to your device to stay in the loop while your child or teen explores the world online.  Family Link helps parents guide their children to good content, keep an eye on screen time, and know where they are as long as they have their device. 

For more great resources be sure to check out Google’s Be Internet Aware resources.

You can Come Together for a Better Internet with your family too.  Check out the Be Internet Awesome starting with the program’s NEW Family Guide and encourage your kids to put their skills to the test with Interland at g.co/Interland.

Together we can stop cyber-bullying!

This is a sponsored post written on behalf of Google as part of the Mom It Forward Influencer Network.  All opinions are my own.