HELP

How to Deal with Cyber Bullying

With the continuous improvement of technology, cyberbullying is unavoidable. It is really upsetting to know someone who is continuously harassed even though they are not doing anything. Victims should be ready on facing cyberbullying. Here are some tips on how to deal with it:

1. Self-Control - It is normal to express aggression of someone

who is being bullied, but controlling oneself will help divert

the negative emotions into something positive.

2. Ignore Attacks - To fight cyberbullying, sometimes all the

person has to do is nothing. The person must learn to ignore

these attacks and not let it get through or affect him/her.

He/she can block the person doing cyberbullying.

Another way is to turn off the technology.

3. Spend Quality Time with Self, Family and Friends -

It doesn’t mean that the person have to face what he/she is going

through alone. Spending time with oneself, family and

friends will help get through the problem. Those love

ones will understand the situation in every way possible.

Spending time with oneself is important as well.

Spending the day doing what he/she likes is a way to

learn how to let go of what has happened.

4. Talk and report – It is important to talk and consult someone

especially if the victim’s still a minor. It can be his/her parents.

The child should explain how he/she is feeling and what has

been happening. He/she should not be ashamed to talk to

his/her family. The child must take every incident seriously

and report incidents of cyberbullying, no matter how

small it is. He/she must first consider the source and save

the messages or posts as proof. When an incident occurs online,

the person has the right to report it to the system and network

administrators. Also, the incident can be reported to the

local police.

5. Be careful – After the cyberbullying incident, the victim must

be more careful to avoid any incidents to happen again.

He/she should remember to not give out passwords,

whether in computers, phones or any social media.

Also, he/she should not share anything personal with anyone

that could potentially put it on the internet. That includes pictures

and information on others. Most importantly, a person should never attempt to end own's life.

There are also some tips for parents to handle this situation:

1. Installing kid monitoring software on computers - By monitoring the behavior and sites visited by the child while online, the parent can get an idea of the patterns that preceded the incident and valuable information to use to tell authorities before it reach higher levels.

2. Have zero tolerance against cyber bullying – The parents should explain to the child that they will neither tolerate them being bullied nor their bullying of other children online. Children must understand that bullying is harassment when it occurs off campus and is punishable by civil courts and the law.

3. Get involved and talk - Parents to should get involved in what the child is doing. Involves a lot more than asking what they did at school. It is also important to know the child’s friends, grades and others. Parents should listen and understand their child. It takes time to make a child speak up but it will be worth it.

Over 70 percent of teenagers said that being able to block cyberbullies was the most effective method of prevention. The best way to address bullying is to stop it before it starts. People should know other ways to prevent and stop cyberbullying from happening in the first place. Blocking may be one way for victims, but cyberbullies will not stop unless they are educated the right way. Schools should implement programs and include the topic to their educational curriculum. Schools should also let the students be more open with their parents and their loved ones, instead of just keeping their problems to themselves. Not only the students, but the teachers and school staffs must be educated and trained, for them to discipline the students appropriately. It is important for everyone to work together to send a unified message against bullying. Schools must establish an environment where bullying is not acceptable. With launching awareness campaigns, people will realize that bullying is never a right thing to do, and there are more things that should be given importance to like their future.