;Resize=(252,60) "Dove Home")
New technology has made it easier for bullies to reach their victims. If you think your child is being affected, use our action checklist for advice on how to support and protect your child from cyberbullying.
What is cyberbullying?
If your child has a mobile phone, a games console, uses social networking sites, instant messenger programs or simply has their own email address, they could become the target of a cyberbully. This might mean they receive abusive emails, texts or comments on Facebook – or that images or videos of them are circulated online without their consent.
Cyberbullying facts
Cyberbullying is on the rise. Since January 2009, the UK charity Family Lives has seen calls to its bullying helpline increase by 13%, while calls specifically about cyberbullying have soared by 77%. Appearance is a common catalyst for cyberbullying attacks – and girls experience it twice as much as boys, according to The protection of children online: a brief scoping review to identify vulnerable groups published by the Child Wellbeing Research Centre.
Cyberbullies often focus on looks
Many forms of cyberbullying focus on how young people's clothes, hair and body look in the pictures and videos they post online. Being the target of persistent teasing about their appearance can have a detrimental impact on a young person’s self-esteem. If it starts to impact your child's life choices – from the clothes they wear to the pictures they’re willing to share – then take action.
Tackling cyberbullying
Talk with your child about the situation, decide actions to resolve the problem together and help develop online behaviour to protect them from cyberbullies. Much of their life will be conducted online or via their mobile phone, so developing protective strategies to deal with online criticism or bullying is important for lifelong self-esteem.
When it comes to beauty, women are their own worst critics. According to The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report 2016, only 20 per cent of women in the UK have high body esteem. Mirror, Mirror, a review of research published by the Social Issues Research Centre, reveals that women are much more critical of their appearance than men, and much less likely to admire what they see in the mirror.
"We need to become more aware of the negative comments we make about our own bodies or the way we criticize our own eating patterns, as this insecurity can be picked up by our daughters," says research health psychologist Dr Phillippa Diedrichs. "Feeling comfortable and valuing your own body might be tricky in today’s culture, but the more positive and caring you can be to yourself and the way you look, the easier it will be for your daughter to develop confidence about her own body."
Don’t teach your child self-criticism
If you're not one of the fortunate one in five who likes their looks, then it's time to consider the impact your body-bashing might be having on your daughter.
"Many women make these kinds of comments without even realizing, but they can pass on a subliminal message to our daughters, making them believe it's natural, even encouraged, for a girl to be critical of, and unhappy with, her own body," says Diedrichs.
A recent UK government inquiry, Reflections on Body Image: Report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image, found that comments like these are picked up on and mimicked by children. The Adverse Effects of Social Pressure to be Thin on Young Women: An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of "Fat Talk" showed that women only need to hear another woman talking like this for three to five minutes before their own body confidence decreases.
