Dr. Mairéad Foody:

That is something we have talked about in the centre quite a lot. The literature is quite divided. One of the things we know from the most recent literature is that we have to be very careful when we ask children to be responsible for stopping the bullying themselves. We do not want them to feel that they have an extra pressure, in that they are already victims and, now, it is also on them to stop the bullying. That is a big ask for young kids. There is also this idea that, “Oh, they are resilient”. There are certainly things we can do to develop resilience but not every child would be resilient in the same scenario or in the same way, so we also have to be careful about how we use that term.

If we want to get them to a place where they can deal with bullying, we need to talk about telling and reporting, and about ways they can identify when it is happening, being a good bystander and all of these other things that will also influence bullying rates and attitudes for other children as well. It is things we can do with all the kids, not just victims, and that we work on things like empathy, being good bystanders and making sure they have the capacity to report and tell when it is happening to them.

On the other point about parents, in addition to what Dr. Mazzone said, namely, that we do the same thing, we also need to be a good role models as parents. We need to ask our children to be empathetic online and offline and make sure they are responsible digital citizens. Therefore, whatever way, shape or form that takes, we are recognising that if we see something online that we do not like, we feel a sense of responsibility for dealing with that as well. That could be one way that parents could mediate or try to influence cyberbullying, by talking to their kids about it and taking responsible actions, even if they are not the victim or the bully. I hope that answers the question.