Cyberbullying. Spotting it, and what helps.

The defining feature of cyberbullying isn't cruelty — that isn't new. It's that there's no point in the day when it stops, and no version of home that's out of reach.

Signs your child isn't telling you about

Most children don't disclose. The reasons are consistent: fear of losing the device, fear of making it worse, and shame. So the signs are usually behavioural.

Around the phone

• Visible distress, anger, or withdrawal immediately after using it
• Sudden avoidance of the phone, in a child who previously never put it down
• Hiding the screen, or checking obsessively and dreading notifications
• Deleting accounts, or creating new ones abruptly

Wider changes

• Not wanting to go to school; unexplained physical complaints on school mornings
• Dropping a friend group without explanation
• Sleep problems, appetite changes, falling grades
• Self-critical language about appearance or worth that sounds new
• Withdrawal from activities they previously enjoyed

What to do first

1. Don't take the phone away

This is the near-universal parental instinct and it is counterproductive for a specific reason: children know it's the likely consequence, and it's the single biggest cause of non-disclosure. Removing the phone also cuts them off from their support network at the moment they need it, and it reads as punishment for being targeted.

Say early and explicitly: "Telling me about this will never cost you your phone."

2. Believe them, and don't minimise

"Just ignore it" and "block them" are the responses children report as most alienating. The situation is genuinely socially serious for them — often more so than an adult's instinct suggests, because their entire peer context is watching.

3. Document before you do anything else

• Screenshot everything: messages, posts, comments, usernames, profile pages, timestamps.
• Save to a folder outside the phone — email it to yourself.
• Do this before blocking or reporting, because both can remove your access to the content.

4. Then block and report

Every major platform has a reporting flow, and reports from the targeted account carry more weight than third-party ones. Report first, then block.

5. Involve the school properly

If the people involved are at your child's school, the school has jurisdiction over conduct that affects the school environment — in many places including conduct that happens off-campus and online.

• Ask for a meeting in writing, not a phone call. Create a record.
• Bring the documentation.
• Ask specifically what their anti-bullying policy commits them to and on what timeline.
• Follow up in writing after the meeting summarising what was agreed.

Written records matter if you later need to escalate to a board or a governing body.

When it becomes a police matter

Cyberbullying crosses into criminal conduct more often than parents realise. Depending on jurisdiction, that includes:

• Threats of violence
• Sharing intimate images of a minor — always, including when the sender is also a minor
• Stalking or persistent harassment
• Impersonation accounts created to defame
• Hate speech targeting a protected characteristic
• Encouraging self-harm or suicide, which is a specific offence in a growing number of places

If any of these apply, report to police with your documentation. Ask for the report number.

Helping your child through it

• Restore some control. Being targeted is disempowering. Let them decide what happens next where it's safe to — whether to block, whether to change accounts, whether to keep going to the club.
• Protect the offline anchors. A sport, an instrument, a job, a cousin — anywhere their identity isn't tied to the peer group where this is happening.
• Watch the internalising. The lasting damage usually isn't the messages; it's whether they come to believe them.
• Get professional help early. Not as a last resort. A therapist experienced with adolescents is genuinely effective here and much better used early.