How To Protect Your Kids from Cyberbullying and Harassment

Cyberbullying and harassment among children have become a persistent problem globally, forcing parents to scramble for ways to protect their children from this online risk. Some years ago, we rarely heard of cyberbullying and harassment. The increased cyberbullying and harassment of kids is directly proportional to the rise of the internet space. There are no exact numbers of cyberbullying and harassment because such injustices face high underreporting. Most kids directly accessing the internet have become targets by their peers and other unethical people online. Cyberbullying and harassment in kids involve thinking like verbal abuse, mean messages, posting victims' pictures online with mean captions, threats, and blackmailing. Cyberbullying and harassment in kids result in mental issues manifested in severe things like depression, low self-esteem, and antisocial tendencies. Parents are responsible for protecting their kids against cyberbullying and harassment. This article explains cyberbullying and harassment, their effects, and how to protect kids from the online risk of cyberbullying and harassment.

Part 1. What Does Cyberbullying and Harassment Mean

Harassment is physical or emotional harm targeted at a particular person. Cyberbullying is a type of harassment that involves threatening, intimidating, and emotionally abusing other people over the internet through devices such as computers and mobile phones.

Part 2. How Cyberbullying Cause Anxiety

Bullies attack you anywhere and anytime of the day. A kid subjected to cyberbullying and harassment develops anxiety and stress because they keep on getting worried when their oppressor might attack again. Feeling unsafe and thinking about what the bully might do causes repeated panic and stress in children, severely affecting their mental health. Let us look at how you can protect kids from online risk of being bullied and harassed.

Part 3. How to Protect Your Kids from Cyberbullying and Harassment

Every parent has a responsibility to protect children from cyberbullying and harassment. Your actions to protect kids from online risk will ensure their safety. The following measures can boost your children's safety against cyberbullying and harassment.

1. Use parental controls

You cannot always conduct physical surveillance on your kids. That is why parental control apps are a crucial element in your parenting. A parental control app monitors your child's every move and gives you an update to ensure you are informed about what's happening in their life. SpyX is a monitoring app dedicated to helping you exercise effective parental control over your children. With SpyX, you will monitor your child's phone activity remotely from your device. A parental control app will keep you updated when they are at risk of cyberbullying and harassment which means you can always move in and counter it from severely affecting your child. SpyX is invisible, and your child won't detect it on their devices. Once you install SpyX on your child's device, you won't need to access the device to monitor them. From your remote control panel, you will keep an eye on the activities happening on your phone.

Features of SpyX

Internet activity monitor tracks where your child visits online, the keywords they search more often, the websites they use, and groups where they might face possible harassment. Location tracker tracks your child's real-time location and where they could be going. Location tracking helps you determine when they are in unknown places meeting strangers. Social media tracker monitors your child's social media accounts like WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and others. You will read their chats and know who they are talking to and what they are exchanging. Call, and message tracker lets you read messages and listen to calls your child has with strangers to prevent them from falling into the claws of bullies. App blocker blocks apps where your child could communicate with their abuser. SpyX has three package plans to choose from meant to accommodate everyone according to their monitoring needs.

Steps to Use SpyX Phone Tracker

Step 1. Sign up Free

To get SpyX and start exercising parental control on your child, go to the SpyX website, sign up and register.

Step 2. Enter iCloud Details

Select a plan, receive a user manual with guidelines via email, set up SpyX on your child's phone.

Step 3. Start Monitoring

And start monitoring remotely from your control panel dashboard.

2. Educate your kids

Educating your kids will inform them about the evils and risks they might face using the internet and how to use the online space safely. Educating them on how to meet an online bully will help your child to develop defense mechanisms of immunity towards facing bullies who will harass them online. Teach them about mindfulness and empathy to help them develop basic morality to be responsible and not be part of the population that cyberbullies and harasses other kids online.  

3. Set boundaries

Setting boundaries prevents your child from being available and exposed to bullies. Setting boundaries involves controlling which online platforms they can visit, what they can do online, and how long they can access a device and internet connection online. Such boundaries will curb their exposure risk to bullies and reduce interactions with strangers.

4. Encourage them to speak out against bullies

Many cyberbullying cases go unreported and unknown because kids feel embarrassed and feel powerless when bullied online and ashamed to report it to anyone. Talk to your child and make them understand that it is not their fault that people with ill intentions abuse them online and that it is okay to speak out to be heard and addressed. Speaking against bullies encourages others to come out, too, which curbs depression and resentment among victims of bullying.

Cyberbullying and harassment have recently increased and are an alarming concern resulting in depression, self-esteem, and mental issues amongst children and teenagers. Parental control apps and parent involvement are good ways of protecting your child against such evils. Parents must adjust to these developments and equip themselves with quality parenting to help save children from this evil.