Social media is an essential part of our lives today, especially in the lives of younger people. Of course, along with using social media, there are lots of benefits; otherwise it wouldn’t be so popular, but, unfortunately, on the other hand, using social media also comes with its downsides just like any other kind of addiction.
Bullying, a severe issue in social media use
For instance, bullying is one of the most critical downsides that are related to using a social media channel. For parents, it’s crucial to watch out for the signs of bullying these days because the latest statistics have revealed the fact that more than five million kids have experienced some kind of form of cyberbullying just in the UK.
According to the NSPCC, about 1.26 million children are experiencing extreme levels of cyberbullying every single day. If you are asking yourself what exactly you can do as a parent to prevent this from happening to your child, well, it’s comforting to know that there are certain steps that you can take in order to help lower the number of kids that are being bullied online.
The first significant thing that you can do is to become aware of the signs of potential bullying.
The main signs that your child is being bullied online
Parents have been encouraged more and more lately to take note of various signs that might appear if their kids are being bullied on the Internet. For starters, you should be aware of any changes in the behavior of your kids that include becoming withdrawn from their friends or yourself, becoming sad, angry or even lashing out. Bullied kids might even refuse to go to school and take part in their usual former activities. There can also appear physical issues such as stomach upsets or headaches and these are usually caused by the immense stress of the situation.
Other signs that you can notice include becoming less social, manifesting a lack of interest in using a device or even stopping using the electronic devices that a long time ago provided massive excitement. You can also see your kids developing unusual or bizarre reactions if they receive a message or call on their devices and such signs can include shaking or jumping and more.
Another essential hint that your kid might be bullied is avoiding talks about what they have been doing online lately or whom they have been talking to.
Potential solutions to protect your children from cyberbullying
For starters, it’s essential to learn the minimum age for creating profiles on social media, even if these are pretty easy to get around by putting in incorrect personal data. Anyway, this is still useful in most cases. To create an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, you must be at least 13 years old and to make yourself a YouTube account, you must be at least 18 or 13 years old but with parental permission.
Your best weapons against cyberbullying as a parent are tools that can help protect your kids online. Such a tool is Enigma Recovery which is a smartphone data recovery system. This is an extremely handy tool if your children are being bullied and it will allow you to collect data that has already been deleted from your child’s smartphone. You can find out more here. Do your best to prevent cyberbullying and keep your kids safe.
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