Cyberbullying - what can parents do?

Cyberbullying is gruelling. Affected children never know who is involved and when the next attack will follow. The first impulse is often to retaliate online. But there are more sustainable solutions.

Where does the fun end?

Actually, we don't mob at all," my tutor students agreed in our last German lesson. Then a 14-year-old added: «If someone comes from Zurich, you just have to insult them.» It wasn't bullying, he said, because he often only knew the person from the internet. It's different with friends and classmates: «You just write under a profile photo: «Wow, you're ugly, but it's just a joke».»
However, the boundaries between fun and offence are blurred. The «Youth and Media» programme's media literacy brochure states: «Cyberbullying begins when an individual feels harassed, harassed and insulted.»

How many cyberbullying victims are there?

«Every second person suffers from cyberbullying», wrote the NZZ in 2015, citing a study by ETH Zurich that analysed the experience of violence among young people in the canton from 1999 to 2014. In the 2016 national JAMES study, however, only around a fifth of young people said they had ever been bullied online. When asked the somewhat more specific question of whether false or offensive things had ever been spread about them online, only 12 per cent answered yes. «Cyberbullying is defined very differently,» says Isabel Willemse, research associate at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), explaining the different results.
Sharmina Egger, media spokesperson for the zischtig association, assumes an even lower number of those affected: «Strictly speaking, around two per cent of children are affected by cyberbullying, while six per cent experience traditional bullying.» In 2014, the association worked with 500 primary school classes on the topic of cyberbullying. Sharmina Egger believes that the impression that there are many more victims is mainly created by the media. Whereas in the past, services such as MSN, ICQ and Facebook were used to bully classmates, today Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp are used, according to Egger.

How can cyberbullying be prevented?

And the bullying is often both mean and creative: sometimes fake profiles of classmates are created or hater comments are written to expose a person. Sometimes photo collages do the rounds in group chats. Thanks to apps and image editing programmes, it is easy to place the heads of classmates on other people's bodies who are naked or partying wildly.
As much as the studies on cyberbullying differ, there is a consensus on prevention: education protects. Chantal Billaud from Swiss Crime Prevention says: «The lower the school level, the more likely bullying is to occur.»
Christian Neff, head of the Goldau school district, also favours education for prevention. Since 2009, his classes in the so-called «project school» have been allowed to use smartphones and tablets in lessons. In the past two years, two cases of cyberbullying have been reported at the school - in classes that did not take part in the project.

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Both cases were discovered very early on with the help of the pupils from the project classes and reported to the teachers. «The pupils have been sensitised to the issue,» says Neff, not without pride. In addition, the inhibition threshold for approaching teachers about media-related issues has fallen.
The cantonal police also have prevention programmes. Katja Arnold, group leader of the youth and prevention police in the canton of Basel-Stadt, visits fifth-grade primary school classes. «We are clearly seeing a trend towards bullying via new media,» she says. The number of silent bystanders has increased, as has the speed at which the content spreads. Almost all children over the age of twelve are connected in some way via a social platform - making the reach for cyberbullying enormous.

Prevention programmes would not only benefit the victims. The perpetrators and especially the followers and bystanders also learn that systematic bullying is against the law. «It is often enough for us to show perpetrators and bystanders what their roles are and what they are doing,» says Arnold's experience. Criminal charges do not necessarily have to be brought.

What can parents do?

The question of whether and when adults should intervene in cases of suspected cyberbullying is difficult to answer. After all, everyday school life and adolescence are all about clarifying hierarchies, self-presentation and finding one's identity. Comments such as «Wow, you're ugly» are classics for this discovery phase of young people, says Sharmina Egger from the zischtig association: «Such comments are part of it.» However, parents should listen carefully if a person in their children's environment is being bullied.

Responding to the bully online is a bad idea. Those affected should rather get help - from their parents or a trusted adult, according to the advice of «Jugend und Medien», the national programme to promote media literacy. The zischtig association also advises parents to keep revisiting the topic, discuss embarrassing images together and think about what happens when people talk about you behind your back.
As an immediate measure, bullies can be blocked and reported to the social network. The written word or screenshots serve as evidence for the police if you want to press charges.

Why cyberbullying is even nastier than bullying

Bullying, from the English «to mob», means to mob or harass someone - over a longer period of time and with the intention of causing harm. In the case of cyberbullying, the supposed anonymity of social networks lowers the inhibition threshold. In addition, cyberbullying victims have no place to retreat to where they are protected from the insults. The internet means that bullying can take place anywhere and at any time. Being terrorised by several people and not knowing who is involved and who is just watching is particularly stressful.

Picture: Fotolia

The author

Martina Proprenter ist Medien- und Geschlechterwissenschaftlerin und beschäftigt sich mit Cybermobbing besonders im Zusammenhang mit ihren Nachhilfeschülern. Sie glaubt, dass sich die Mobbing-Sprüche kaum geändert haben, die Angriffe mit den neuen medialen Möglichkeiten aber perfider sind.
Martina Proprenter
is a media and gender studies scholar and deals with cyberbullying, particularly in connection with her tutoring students. She believes that the bullying slogans have hardly changed, but that the attacks are more perfidious with the new media possibilities.

Cyberbullying: Read more

  • Why is there such a harsh tone on social networks? What is there to consider?
  • Insulted, excluded, laughed at: bullying is a trauma for every child and young person - especially when it happens online.
  • 19-year-old Chiara talks about the worst time of her life: two years ago, she was bullied online by her best friend at the time - out of jealousy .