Ensuring your kids are safe when they are on the Internet is a great thing to do, but you may find it is more difficult than you imagined. This is when you should know more information about the different signs of cyberbullying. When you know about these signs, you can easily determine if your child is one of the ones who is being bullied or if they are doing the bullying. Without any information on this type of action, you can easily miss out on the signs and then feel bad when your children are accused of being in the wrong or even worse find out they are causing themselves harm because of what the bully has been doing to them.
Signs of CyberBullying: If Your Kid Is A Victim
Determining if your kid is a victim can be a great way to figure out what you should do next. The problem is most of the time the signs are so well hidden that you may not pick up on them. However, other signs may be right out in the open, but you may completely ignore them. This is when you should know what some of the signs are then you can start to address them immediately when you see the signs. Without this information, your kids may be a victim of a bully and you may not even realize what is going on, even if it is under your own roof.
– If your children went from using the computer every day for hours on end, to not even using it at all. This is one of the major signs and one which you should be able to spot very easily. The reason they are stopping is they do not want to get picked on or bullied by the person on the other end of the screen. So they are going to just simply stop using the machine because they figure this is one of the best ways to avoid the bully. This is also one of the points you can easily pick up on since you are probably going to notice the computer chair is empty.
– When the chime for the email or instant messages goes off they start to jump through the roof. You may not notice this one as easily because you may not be around when these come through. However, if your child is starting to get really jumpy for no reason when the chimes go off then you may be concerned about them being bullied. This would be if this is happening on a regular basis, though, and not as if they had just drifted off to sleep and the chime went off scaring them.
– When your child starts to look uneasy about what is going on around them is another sign. Typically the outgoing kids will not mind going to school. However, when they are getting picked on it could be a sign as they are not wanting to go to school anymore. This is also true when your kids are starting to find going out at all is not good. So you should keep an eye on how uneasy your kids may be getting when you tell them to go and do something or if they have to go out. Then you can know for certain if you should be concerned about your kids being bullied or not.
– Sometimes you may find your kids are going to start to get really angry at the computer. When they do this, you should check to see if they are playing a game first, which may be upsetting them, or something else. If they are not playing a game, then they could be getting picked on and do not want you to know about it. However, the unexplained anger at the computer is something you may be able to pick up on and easily start to intervene with because you do not want them to have these types of angry outbursts.
– Typically your kids will share what they are doing online with you if it is interesting. So you should keep an eye out to see if they are still sharing the information with you or not. If your children have stopped sharing all the information with you, then they may be getting bullied or starting to explore some of the sites you do not want them to visit in the first place. To guarantee they are not doing this, you should make sure all the communication is present on what they are doing and who they are talking to. This way you have the protection of knowing what your kids are doing and who they are talking to online.
– Something else which you may notice, this can be seen with regular bullying as well, is if they decide not to talk to anyone anymore. Normally kids, no matter how old, have someone they always go to and talk to. If your children suddenly stop talking to the person they normally would talk to, then you may have some problems on your hands. So you need to make sure you know who they normally talk to and know if they are going to be able to get the information out of your kids. However, if they have even stopped talking to them, then you may have more problems because they are withdrawing and seeing the only way to protect themselves is to stay away from everyone.
Signs Of Cyberbullying For The Bully Parents
Finding out that some form or some signs of cyberbullying is going on at your children’s school can be scary. This is when you may notice that your kids are spending a lot of time online. Normally this would not be unusual, but you may start to question if your kids are the cyber bully everyone is talking about. Here are some of the signs that your child could be the cyberbully that everyone has grown so fearful of.
– One of the key signs of cyberbullying is if they hear you coming, they start to change the screens right away. This may not seem like it is a big deal, but you need to realize when they are changing the screens quickly it is to hide something. So you need to keep an eye on if they are changing the screens quickly when you are coming up or if they are keeping up the same screen as always.
– Using the computer all during the night is another big sign. If they are allowed to use the computer at night, you may want to track how much they are using it. You may also want to find out what they are using it for. Then you can determine if they are bullying other kids or if they are just cramming for the late night project. However, if this is a dramatic change for them, then you may want to consider this as a sign they are bullying some of the other children.
– Sometimes there will be a time when your kids just cannot use the computer. If this seems to upset your kids you need to find out why. Sometimes it could be because they were going to make date plans, but other times it could be for no reason at all and this is when you should be concerned.
– Depending on what your kids are doing they may find something funny. For example, some of the videos on YouTube can be hilarious. However, if you find your kids are laughing and not doing anything which could be seen as funny it can be seen as a sign of being a bully. By keeping an eye on this you can determine if your kids are bullying the other children or if they are just being kids and watching some of the great videos they can see on YouTube or other video sharing sites.
– Having multiple accounts on social networking sites or multiple email accounts. Typically your kids should only have one account which, you can check. If you find they are using more than one account then you may find your kids are signing up for multiple accounts on the social networking sites or even deciding to create new email accounts. Then you cannot track all of the activities they are doing on a regular basis. Instead, they are making it more difficult for you to keep track of what they are doing.
Finding out a cyberbully is around in your area is never a fun thing to discover. However, you may find if you are careful and know the signs of cyberbullying you can start to know if your kids are one of the victims or the bully. Some of these signs will be obvious and easy for you to pick up on, but others are not going to be so obvious. This is really true if your kids are the bully as they will do their best to hide all of what they are doing. By knowing what to look for, it is easy for you to pick up on the signs and then you can start to pay more attention to them and be able to properly respond to the actions which you are kids are doing.