At the Education Festival which took
place over the weekend at Wellington College, I attended an excellent seminar
run by the leaders of the Anti-Bullying Ambassadors programme in conjunction
with Facebook. Their peer mentoring programme raises awareness and coaches
young people in how to identify and address bullying issues in their school. For
more information visit the website www.antibullyingpro.com Although a reasonably new initiative, it is already run
in over 600 schools countrywide as part of the Diana Award, which encourages
and empowers young people to engage in social action
It was quite mind boggling to
hear that one third of 3 to 4 year olds are now online via a PC and 5 to 15
year olds use of tablets has tripled since 2012 (Ofcom)
With this in mind, I
thought their top tips about how best to support your child if they tell you they
are being bullied online might be a useful thing to share.
- Praise and thank them for telling you. Reassure them and keep calm.
- Ask them how long it has been going on and if they are happy to show you.
- Ask them how it made them feel and discuss how they would like to resolve. Their buy-in to the suggested solution is important.
- Screen shot the evidence. You may need your child to show you how to do this as all devices are different.
- Block the person who sent the comments.
- Explain the importance of not retaliating, no matter how much you feel inside that you would like to go and ring the person’s neck.
- Change the password. They gave an excellent analogy-treat your password like your tooth-brush. Change it regularly and don’t share it with anyone.
- Check who their information is shared with, if necessary changing the privacy settings.
- Make the school aware of the issues, if your child is happy to do so and agree a plan as to how the problem will be addressed and the timescales.
- If the comments are threatening, inform the police.
Other sites they recommended for information about preventing online bullying were www.facebook.com/safety/bullying
or UK Safer Internet Centre http://www.saferinternet.org.uk
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