Bullies have been around since the beginning of time. However, parents, teachers and school administrators now need to work tirelessly to ensure kids are safe in both the real world and from online cyberbullying. Here are the most common cyberbullying examples to help parents spot it and stop it.
MOST COMMON FORMS OF CYBERBULLYING
1. Harassment
Harassment takes several forms, such as calling other people names. Ultimately, it degrades someone’s self-esteem and makes kids feel lesser. In the past, kids would have a reprieve from physical harassment when they got home from school, but with cyberbullying kids can continue receiving mean comments on social media.
That constant messaging can really take a toll over time.
2. Catfishing
What is catfishing? At its simplest, someone creates a fake profile to befriend another person — in this case, your child. Through communicating, they can acquire personal information about your child or family and use it against them. Sometimes it’s to tease or humiliate the young person, in other cases it can prove more serious, such as identity theft. Since the catfisher is hiding his or her real identity, it can be difficult to bring about any kind of punishment.
3. Exclusion
Exclusion becomes much more prevalent online. Kids may feel left out from other students lives, such as when kids post pictures of a party your child wasn’t invited to. Additionally, other kids may have online conversations and tag other friends but not your child — who sees the interactions due to shared social feeds. Because the actions are so public-facing and no one is communicating with the excluded child, the loneliness can be overwhelming.
4. Outing
Some students will post private and sensitive information about your child that they didn’t want to publicly share. This is often associated with outing a child’s sexual orientation before he or she is comfortable with sharing that information. However, outing can involve any type of information that serves to fuel for bullying. For example, one student can post another student’s family using food stamps to shame the individual.
5. Trolling
Trolling is the deliberate act of provoking an individual through bad language or insults on social media or online forums. The goal is to make the other person angry enough to act in a similar manner. Most of the time, trolls target vulnerable people to put them down. The best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them completely. Trolls want a reaction, so you should not give them one.
6. Fraping
Many people are unfamiliar with
7. Cyberstalking
While cyberstalking and cyberbullying are often used interchangeably, in this case cyberstalking refers to someone using social media and the internet to obsessively contact someone else. In many cases, the target is a child.
The stalker will constantly message or harass your child. These can be threats, sexual advances, or any kind of unwanted attention. It is an incredibly dangerous form of bullying, and parents need to intervene to stop it. Save all messages, emails, or texts as evidence, and contact the school, law enforcement, and the child’s parents if the stalker is a classmate. Learn more here.
