Guest post

Cyber-bullying is one of those things that media regularly exploits to gain attention, kind of like Kanye West dissing Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs. It has been seven years but no one has been able to let it go. Yet the sad truth is that no one, other than the family and friends of the victims of cyber bullying really understand it.

Statistics on Cyber-Bullying

According to a number of studies conducted in the past decade or so, 37% of teens between the ages of 11 and 17 were reported to have been bullied in 2014, a staggering 11% hike from the 16% in 2013. The horror doesn’t end here. According to the latest study, this number has hiked from 37% to 40% in August 2015.

According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), suicide is one of the leading cause of death amongst young adults and teenagers with a recorded estimate of 4,400 deaths annually. Additionally, more than 14% high school students have considered killing themselves and almost 7% have attempted it.

According to a study conducted by Yale University, American victims of cyber-bullying are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider bullying than non-victims. Similarly, 10 to 14-year-old girls who are being bullied are more prone to killing themselves.

With the ever increasing number of teenagers joining various social media outlets every single day, cyber-bullying is an evil that is not going to go away anytime soon. Therefore, parents need to educate themselves about how to deal with the cyber-bullying, how to find out whether their child is a part of it and what they can do to put a stop to it.

Signs your child is bullied

Drop in Grades

Do you see your child studying way more than usual, yet he/she is doing really bad at school? Then it might mean that your child is being cyberbullied. Cyber-bullying can seriously affect a child’s mindset as well as physical health. Such decline of both can lead to serious drop in grades as well as a drop in the number of friends.

Paying too much attention to physical appearance

More often than not, teenagers are teased by their peers about their height, weight, skin, complexion or any other physical appearance. Whatever make them slightly different can be a subject for teasing. Take notice when your child starts complaining about the kind of clothes they have and wishing they could dress better and how you cannot fulfil their wishes.

Change in eating habits

Start paying attention when your usually love-to-eat child suddenly wants to go on a diet or have a sudden loss of appetite. Talk to them. Finding what’s wrong. Maybe they’ve been hit on their physical appearances. Go unnoticed, this can lead to self-destructive behaviour like self-harm and eating disorder.

Depression

The ultimate outcome of cyber-bullying, or any sort of bullying really is a tumble down the road of depression. No matter the reason of the torment, your child will suffer from depression at some point.

Cyberbullying is the price we have to pay for going digital. Instead of complaining, let’s focus on making sure our kids do not become its victim. Being parents, we should be extra careful when it comes to the online safety of your kids. One way of doing so is by installing apps like TheOneSpy on your kids’ device. These apps can identify bullying behaviour, making it easy for you to take preventive action before it is too late.

Author bio:

 Nicki is a working mum writing blogs to help fellow mums use technological apparatus to make parenting easier in today’s era. Her work on spy app for android mobile phone has received great appreciation from readers. To know more about her follow on twitter @nickimarie222.