Electronic Bullying Children Is Serious Problem

Internet violence can be worse than violence face-to-face because a written word lasts for 24 hours and the child cannot distance itself.

The increasing cases of violence among children via electronic media has become widespread and is creating increasing danger. Malicious messages sent by mobile phones or on the internet can have very dangerous consequences for children. Experts claim that such type of bullying can be even worse than bullying face-to-face. 

- A written word lasts for 24 hours and can come from somebody’s room, which immediately includes a much wider audience. When somebody verbally abuses children on a playground, for example, that child has the option to walk away from the abuse. But it is different with electronic media – Gordana Buljan Flander, Croatia’s leading expert on child protection told us.

The most important thing is to secure peaceful and undisrupted conditions for a child to grow up in without influences that could cause them traumas in their future lives. Parents have to also take on a large part of responsibility and get proper education.

- A child has to have faith in its parents so it could confide in them. Victims often think that everything is their own fault and have low self-esteem, which is why they don’t ask for help. Parents should talk to their children and show that they can have confidence in them – Buljan Flander said, adding that if parents notice some form of abuse, they should immediately contact competent institutions.

Internet bullying is reported to the police

Abuse over the internet is equally punishable as face-to-face abuse, so the school has to be notified about such cases, the social care centre and eventually the police. Also, the administrator of the electronic medium in question should be notified because if the bullying continues, even after the parents intervene, the police become involved.

- Recently we had a case of an internet user publishing impermissible content. After the site administrator removed the content, the user did it again. In that case, after a warning, the police are called in. Three, four years ago, when we first began being notified of such cases, a child started a blog, representing himself as someone else. He wrote malicious things about another child and the victim did not now how to react or what to do – Buljan Flander told us.

Many parents will be faced with the dilemma whether to control their child in order to protect it. But as in everything, they have to have the right measure because confidence once lost is difficult to get back.

Buljan Flander advises parents to control the activities of their children, but without too much interference in their privacy. Checking all e-mails without justified suspicion is exaggerating, but if you develop an understanding relationship with your child and you show it that it can tell you everything, the child should come to you with its problems on its own.