Cyberbullying now widespread, with children targeted at all hours of the day
Affect Teachers At Happening Really That Even If Incidents Home Day, Report Cyberbullying Are The School Can The
Cyberbullying is now "widespread" across the country, with incidents happening after school in group chats, during online gaming and on TikTok then following children into their classrooms the next day.
That's according to the national children's charity Barnardos, which hosted a webinar on the topic.
Over the last year, its online safety programme has worked with more than 23,000 children.
Cyberbullying is a big issue for all schools, whether they are small country schools or big inner-city schools, according to Clíodhna Purdue, training executive of the online safety programme.
“Very often that's why we're going into the school in the first place, because there's been a cyberbullying incident," she said.
"It can be making a fake TikTok account to prank your friends, or more seriously, maybe impersonating your friends on Instagram. It’s gaming as well, mean comments in gaming.”
Teachers report that cyberbullying can really affect the school day, even if the incidents are happening at home. Barnardos believes communication and an open dialogue is the most important way for parents to approach online safety, she added.
James Hayden, a home-school liaison teacher from Dublin, said all schools have experienced ongoing and increasing incidents of cyberbullying as smartphones and gaming have changed.
“It started off with groups of children being excluded from WhatsApp groups and things like that.”
Schools would also experience issues around the sharing of photos and fake profiles, he said. "We would have definitely had children sharing inappropriate stuff that they've accessed online or that has been sent to their phones.
"All of these things are happening and take quite a lot of effort to deal with. The classic bully standing in front of you and being mean to you I’m sure is still around but now we have this added, really complex issue of cyberbullying.”
Suzanne Connolly, Barnardos chief executive, said it was important for adults to be calm when they have discussions about bullying with their children. Parents of a child who is doing the bullying need to very clear that behaviour is not okay, and explore what the feelings or attitudes are motivating it, she added.