I felt it was time to update some of the advice and
information I have previously shared about online bullying. – As Safer Internet Day approaches there are many
articles appearing online about ‘cyberbullying’ and conferences and events taking
place, dedicated only to this type of bullying.
Bullying is behaviour that makes people feel frightened,
hurt, threatened and left out. It impacts on a person’s ability to feel in
control of themselves (their ‘agency’) and to respond effectively. This
behaviour can harm physically and emotionally and the threat is typically
sustained. This behaviour takes place in a variety of places, including online.
The research I undertook in late 2014 provided a picture of
what types of behaviour children were experiencing and where it was taking
place. The findings confirmed what many already thought while continuing to
surprise many others.
Face to face bullying accounted for the majority of bullying
incidents. The three most common behaviours experienced when being bullied face
to face were:
Name calling
Hurtful Comments
Rumours
8,000 children and young people from across the country took
part in the research. 30% of them said they had experienced bullying in the last
12 months. Of the incidents they experienced:
60% took place in person
21% took place both in person and
online
19% tool place online only
They also told us that only 6% of bullying started online –
and it was usually related to something that happened in school or face to
face. The behaviour can then continue
online, face to face and sometimes both.
The three most common behaviour experienced online were:
Name
Calling
Hurtful
Comments
Verbal
Abuse
This shows that there is little difference between the
behaviours experienced – only where they took place.
This has helped us work with colleagues to develop local
surveys and questionnaires that ask the right questions, not ‘Were you bullied’
and ‘were you cyberbullied?’ But ask ‘Were you bullied?’ ‘What was the
behaviour and where did this happen?’
Children and young people were able to tell us very clearly things like ‘I was
called names and this happened on the bus and on Facebook’.
There should be little focus on where it took place – it was
still bullying.
The findings from the research show that online bullying is
more public and more visible. This is what contributes to the notion that it is
a ‘bigger’ or ‘increasing’ problem. Bullying behaviour is not always seen by
lots of people – threats and manipulative behaviour still takes place largely
in private – away form everyone else. This is still the most common type of bullying;
sneaky, under the radar behaviour, carried out in places where there is little
or no supervision.
So what are the risks
with this?
The main risk is that we have, and often still do, focus
heavily on online or cyber bullying and have almost started to ignore the less public
types of bullying. I even get asked about
what has happened to ‘traditional’ bullying. We seem to have developed this
notion that the only thing to be concerned about is the stuff that happens
online. This is not to say what is happening online isn’t concerning, of course
it is, but so is the behaviour our children and young people continue to
experience face to face – and sometimes both face to face and online.
We do not need to develop specific polices for online
bullying, but we need to ensure that all
of our anti-bullying policies and practices reflect that things happen both
face to face and online. This approach is in line with international research
and best practice. When we talk about bullying we mean bullying that happens
face to face and online.
When talking to children and young people recently about new
national policy they told me they found it strange that people still talked
about ‘cyber’ bullying as ‘cyber’ is just not a word they use for
anything. The distinction between online
and offline isn’t as straightforward as some adults may think. Relationships
play out online and in person – whether chatting face to face or on Twitter or Snapchat – it’s all talking to
friends.
Young people told us some very interesting things about
their lives online. The majority of young people (81%) consider their online
friends to be all or mostly the same as in real life. Only 4% of the 8,000
surveyed said they did not know the people they were ‘friends’ with online.
Crucially, 92% of children who experienced bullying online
knew the person bullying them. This goes some way to challenge the ever present
line that anonymity is one of the driving factors behind bullying online. Young
people interact and socialise with an extended network of other people they are
connected to through school, family communities and friendships as well as
similar interests in music or sport.
They also use social media
to communicate –the purpose of using smart phones, consoles or laptops
is primarily about staying in-touch with friends, something which is as
important for young people today as it was 40 years ago. They have different
means at their disposal but the principle is the same.
On of the challenges we still face is the belief that if something
happens onlineit did not take place in school and the school or teacher cannot
do anything about it. Our advice on this has been consistent – we respond to what happened to someone – not where it happened. If a child or young
person decides to inform their teacher – they are investing in them as an adult
they trust to help them – that last thing we should be doing is sending them
away.
I was talking to a teacher about this earlier this week and
she feels frustrated that an incident that happened at a swing park between two
pupils in the same class is being ignored by some colleagues because of where
it took place. The school here is in a great position to help resolve this –
they don’t need to do all the work but could lead on helping the children they
know feel safer or behave more respectfully. It is the same if it happens on
Facebook. Respond to what happened not where or when. Respond to how someone
feels – that way you can role model effective ways of dealing with relationship
and interpersonal difficulties.
Bullying is also about relationships – not technology. We must focus on equipping young people with
the skills to conduct themselves online in a more respectful manner; the skills
to manage their environments safely, and to develop their confidence and
abilities to negotiate relationships and problems. This is built on promoting
and developing resilience. But we also have to equip parents with the knowledge
and understanding about how social media and the other places children and
young people go online work; how to make them safe and, most importantly, how
to talk to their children about using them. respectme offers free training for parents on this.
‘Cyberbullying’ is bullying; it is about relationships that
are not healthy or being managed or role modelled well. It is behaviour done by
someone to someone else, it is the ‘where’ this is taking place that is new.
The behaviour appears to be migrating, as children spend more time online, the
behaviour they have always exhibited and experienced goes with them.
Adult fear and anxiety has long been the biggest hurdle in dealing
with bullying online. It has had a very high media profile at times and it
appears ’new’. For parents or adults who
do not use social media or connect with their friends using the internet, this can
be a challenging and, at times, bewildering experience.
Lots of colleagues have said they are ‘technophobes’ or are
not ‘tech savvy’ and have voiced how much they dislike Facebook or twitter. We
have maintained that if you work with children and young people or if you are a
parent or carer, that is no longer good enough. You need to know! For some that
will require a real effort to spend time and utilise their relationships to
learn. We cannot abdicate responsibility for this to software. We need to
connect and learn about how young people use the internet and the phones or
laptops they access it from.
Many adults have experience of managing risk when working
with children and young people, and this is a new place for us to consider. We
need to be as imaginative and creative with the internet as we have been in
other places.
What is not bullying?
One other phenomenon that has emerged is the conflating of
all online behaviours and risks under one heading. Sexting is not bullying, it
is largely a consensual thing, part of adolescents exploring relationships and
attraction. Forcing someone to take a naked picture of themself or part of their
body naked is not bullying, it is abusive and coercive behaviour. Threatening
someone to do something sexually is not bullying - it is sexually aggressive
behaviour. Some guidance in the UK had stated that grabbing a girl’s chest or
putting your hand up her skirt is a type of bullying. We do
not agree with this. That behaviour is a
type of sexual assault. We must not dilute abusive behaviour. This is not an
attempt to demonise children and young people, but to address the fact that if
we dilute sexually aggressive behaviour we run the risk of normalising it.
People are still of the opinion that ‘bullying is a normal part of growing up’
or ‘It’s just bullying’. This is why we work closely with colleagues who work
in areas of violence against women and girls particularly, to make sure we give
a consistent message that sexually aggressive behaviour is never acceptable and,
while bullying and abusive behaviour can be linked, they are not the same thing.
There have been high profile examples of blackmail,
extortion and threatening behaviour online that have been referred to in the
media as cyberbullying. We need to be
clear about what we are talking about.
If someone is targeted, and forced to hand over money under the threat
that someone will release pictures of them, they are being criminally extorted
- not bullied. Using the term ‘cyberbullying’ to describe a host of other abusive behaviours
only adds to the fear and confusion on how to respond.
As we move forward we must ensure that we focus on the fact that
when we talk about bullying, we are talking about behaviour that happens online
and face to face.
Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment