The 16-year-old suicide of Katy Winter, the stage name of a Chilean girl who dreams of becoming a singer, hit Chile in 2018 and brought up online harassment: she was a little girl ‘mobbing’ at school, but were also insulted 24 hours a day through various social networks.
Katy’s parents condemned their daughter’s death in a letter: “Throughout her short life she has suffered in various ways, in various places and in various settings, from comments that somehow consumed and failed to sustain her.”
Suicide is the tip of the cyberbullying iceberg. Every year thousands of girls and boys are victims of this violence by other minors; class-exceeding pressures and their physical consequences can last a lifetime.
Despite the seriousness, parents are not always willing to confront their children with cyberbullying: 64% of parents would not know what to do if their child were a victim of online bullying, and two in three parents are unaware of the existence of parental control tools. This is data from a survey conducted earlier this year by Ripley’s retail chains.
This year, Ripley even launched a campaign in Chile and Peru to warn against cyberbullying and provide educational materials to schools and families in those countries on how to deal with minors.
“Bullying has a huge impact on the family of the bully, the family of the victim and the child affected. If a child is having a hard time at school, they cannot learn well. “That’s why the effects of bullying will accompany them throughout their lives,” said Pilar Barriga, who runs anti-bullying campaigns at Ripley.
“stop, think, send”
Ripley’s campaign was based on the slogan “Stop, think, publish”, which proposes promoting emotional literacy in schools and suggests that minors take a break to consider the implications of that message before impulsively posting content on social media and potential become victims. .
The Volando en V Foundation, which specializes in bullying and coexistence in schools, worked on campaign material that reached dozens of schools. Project leader Teresita Costadoat pointed out that families should take an active role in knowing what their children are doing online.
“We invite families to show empathy. It’s easy, but takes a lot of work. “Parents need to connect morally with their children, communicate the consequences of their actions on social networks and thus become digital teachers to reduce the use of social networks without any imposition.”
look outside school
According to psychologist Rodrigo Robert, who specializes in school bullying, the most active teens experiencing cyberbullying go through a period of great impulsivity in their lives and have yet to develop the mental structures that regulate the strongest emotions.
That’s why Robert recommends using schools to teach children to control their actions: “When little ones learn to care for others and know that this ‘other’ is no stranger, their own well-being depends on the well-being of others. It makes them think twice before acting,” explained Robert.
While the focus is sometimes on school to address cyberbullying, Robert noted that some of the causes of the phenomenon lie outside the classroom: “In schools, kids often show off what’s going on in their personal lives, and cyberbullying is nothing more,” he said.
The psychologist noted that in today’s society there are situations that put pressure on family life and have psychological consequences for minors: long presence of parents at work, lack of health care, low pensions of grandparents, promotion of competition in schools and others.
“It is rare for a child who is treated with love and whose emotional needs are met to be aggressive. Children tend to be empathetic, but they can lose that as they grow up and learn.” be more aggressive regardless of the drinks around them”.
Source: Ultimahora
Source link
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
