How to Protect Your Child From Cyberbullying and Deter Them From Bullying Someone Else

In this video Lauren Muriello, LPC of Well Being Therapy Center, encourages parents to help their teenage children understand the importance of being kind on social media. Just as we try to teach our children when they are young to “be nice, share, don’t hit anyone,” we need to give them the same advice regarding social media.

Lauren points out how much easier it is for people to be mean behind their devices when you are not seeing people’s facial expressions.

Your child’s social media persona

Most everyone adopts a “social media persona.” We need to look at the persona our teenager might be putting out there on social media.

It’s important to have this conversation with your kids… What is your social media persona? You taught them when they were little to be nice, share, be kind, etc. But we are not talking with our teenagers about how to be nice online. -Lauren MurielloClick To Tweet

For the teen who may be falling prey to cyberbullying, we need to encourage our teens to put their devices down and/or stop following people who could be helping them feel lousy about themselves.

This is an important point because engagement is a choice. We may not be able to choose our teenage classmates or our coworkers as adults, but we are in control of those that we choose to bring into our inner circles.

A true story about a Marine colonel

I have a friend who was a lieutenant colonel in the marines, a tough guy who did several tours in Vietnam. Recently in retirement, he took up singing, mostly country music.

He’s been on stage a few times and enjoys singing for friends. He puts his heart into it, and sometimes he posts a video of himself singing on Facebook. I’m sure he feels plenty vulnerable posting those videos.

He told me recently that a long-time friend commented on his post, “Don’t quit your day job.” I’m guessing that friend thought he was being funny; maybe that’s his “social media persona” gone astray. That comment was hurtful to my friend, and now he has one less Facebook friend.

Being your best self

The takeaway is that, on some level, we are all vulnerable beings. We need to teach our children to be sensitive to this fact on social media just as we teach them to be in real life.

If we’ve done our job well, teaching our children to model positive behavior online should easily carry over.

“Parenting and Digital Technology” Video Series

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