CyberBullying - Navigating Parenthood in a Digital Age

Be aware, this blog post contains some strong language.

So, for those of you who follow on facebook, you will have seen my post a couple of weeks ago with me and the laptop sitting in the sun whilst the Mr ran around a football field in 23 degree heat.

I was on a roll musers! I had all but finished the article I was writing, and unlike a lot of what I write which is just genuine musings and shower thoughts, (if you know you know), it was an important one.

Then, the unimaginable happened...

Despite my Wix account telling me everything had been automatically saved, when we got home from visiting the parental units after football, (and can I say quite possibly the best lemon cake in the world EVER), the whole post was gone.

(Insert weeping, wailing and maybe a little bit of self flagellation right here!)

Anyhoo, after I managed to calm the rising panic in my gut I thought to myself, its fine - it'll be there. My laptop is just having a wobble. It happens to the best of us. Unfortunately however, when I came back to it, it was still missing without a trace.

I was getting ready to move house (check), and I knew that trying to sit down at that precise moment and recreate it would just not happen so here we are - second attempt.

Strap in musers because this is going to get gnarly!

A few days prior to the attempt that we shall pretend never happened, I was doing what I am sure most of us do from time to time. Scrolling through old photos on my phone.

I don't remember why but I was looking at a particular time frame for each year. As I got further back, I came across these and my heart stopped.

So, you would be forgiven for thinking that this had come from teens based on the language used, but this was actually two messages from pages and pages of private Tik Tok messages sent to my son from his supposed friend group, and they were all still in first school.

I'll give you just a minute.

10 and 11 year olds that he had gone through first school with, walked to and from school with, had tea with and hung around with were abusing him in the most insidious and damaging way they possibly could.

Not just one or two of them, but the entire friendship group, and it went on for pages. I still have every one of those message screenshots.

I came across it by chance and this is what I wanted to talk about today. Parenting in the digital age.

How much privacy do we allow our children in a world that is as alluring as todays world is, but also as pernicious, deceptive, cunning and dangerous?

At what point do we step in and invade that privacy and protect them not only from adults who want to hurt, influence or abuse them, but also the friendship groups around them because lets be honest, when things go bad, they have a tendancy to spiral quickly. Cyberbullying is an epidemic and we are losing children all the time because we assume our babies are safe.

Today I am here to tell you that they aren't, and as parents, we have to make sure that we educate them on online safety before anything else.

My son was 10 when I got him his first phone.

He was coming into the last year of first school and because we lived so close to the school, he desperately wanted to walk in without mum in tow. His friends had been walking together for a little bit and because they walked very close to where we lived, I agreed that as long as they knocked for him, as soon as he had a phone he could start walking without me.

There were rules for it of course.

Google tracker had to be on so I could see where he was at all times.

If I called, he needed to answer.

He needed to keep it charged, and whenever I asked to take a look, he needed to let me.

That last rule was never about invading his privacy.

It was about monitoring the interactions between him and other people online, and whilst I was always conscious of the risk of paedophiles, the thought of him being bullied using the one thing that made him feel like a grown up was not something I had every considered possible.

After all, he was this very cute little thing - bias aside of course.

He always had a girlfriend - as much as kids of that age do.

He was always talking to his friends.

He was always spending time out or playing games with them via the Xbox.

I thought those friendships were solid. I could not have been more wrong.

There was no real sign that I could put my finger on at the point that I became aware of the problem.

I just knew something didn't feel right.

Although the phone checks were few and far between, up to that point I hadn't come across anything that concerned me, and we talked openly quite often about internet safety.

That day, he just seemed very despondent so we chatted and I asked him if I could take a look at his phone.

When I started to scroll through the vile messages from not just one person but his whole group, my heart began to pound. As a mother I would be lying if I said I didn't want to tear their hearts out. I was livid.

Wavering between almost blind anger and complete devastation that he had been putting up with that for so long and said nothing, I sat quietly and continued to read through page after page after page after page.

Even now, typing this at 5am because I can't sleep, I still feel that same visceral anger and upset that I felt at the time.

This was my boy. I had carried him for 9 months safe in my body and then protected him for 10 years as much as I could, and these vile little brats were attacking him in the most insidious and dangerous way possible.

We were lucky. I found the messages. I was able to handle the situation and as much as I might have wanted to, I didn't rip their warm, still beating hearts out of their chests.

We discovered the actual bullying had gone on for years, but me giving him a phone to allow him to walk to school with his 'friends' had just opened up a whole new avenue for it.

So, how do we navigate that protection as parents in a way that protects our children without them thinking that they aren't trusted.

That really is the million dollar question and the honest answer is - I don't know.

What I do know though is how important it is that you have these conversations with your kids, and that you start those chats young. I spent a little bit of time doing some research on facts and figures for this and the statistics are terrifying.

For those of you in my generation, we are in a very unique position. We straddle both worlds.

We grew up without the internet but in a world that was beginning to open up exponentionally to the possibility of communication between countries in a way that hadn't been experienced before.

We had a proper childhood.

We played football. We climbed trees. We rode our bikes. We sat gossiping on the landline for hours with our friends ten minutes after we had left them, and the telly?

Well when I started out there were only 3 channels!

As I became an adult, the internet was becoming a thing. It was still dial up which for those who can remember was an absolute nightmare.

Mobile phones were like bricks and if you had a signal anywhere that wasn't in the middle of a city then you had struck absolute gold!

Those of us from my generation are lucky enough to have experienced life without, but also been young enough to adapt relatively well to life with the internet, mobile phones, social media and all the rest of that crazy jazz. The reality is though folks, not one of us could have predicted how fast it would move and just how dangerous it would become.

Especially for our children.

Life is almost impossible without the internet so its becoming so much more important to tackle the subject of cyberbullying and online safety openly from a young age.

Its vital that we educate ourselves and there are some fantastic tools online that are there specifically to help parents tackle this subject. We all know that google is your friend!

Barnado's have a great article on supporting parents with tackling this subject and honestly, it doesn't matter that much where you start. Just that you start.

We can't control everything that our kids will face, but what we can do is arm them with knowledge, trust guidance and openness. Maybe that will be enough to make the online world a little safer for them.

Check out the link below if you need some tips and please remember - you aren't alone.

https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/support-for-parents-and-carers/child-abuse-and-harm/keeping-children-safe-online/how-to-talk-children-safe-online

Until next time...