Cyberbullying, the crime of minors
Many parents have heard about bullying, which refers to abuse and intimidation among schoolmates, in a repeated and maintained way; and the cyberbullying, that is exercised by means of the computer or the mobile telephone, that is to say, with the new technologies and social networks. But not so many know what constitutes a crime.
The cyberbullying almost always occurs far from the eyes of adults, with the intention of humiliating and abusing a defenseless victim, by one or more aggressors through verbal and / or social attacks, with results of psychological victimization and rejection group
The cruelty of cyberbullying: what is wrong?
Minors can demonstrate a brutal cruelty by doing cyberbullying and engage in authentic spirals of violence, barricaded after the anonymity allowed by new technologies and social networks. This, which is tragic for the harassed or victim of cyberbullying, is also pernicious for the harasser. Both will distort their feelings which can lead to problems in their adult life.
For some parents it is terrible to discover that their child is being a victim of cyberbullying, but also if it is the harasser: an offender (because cyberbullying is a crime) who harms others and who, many times, enjoys doing it, although just be a joke.
At a minimum, cyberbullying should be a topic of family conversation; At the most, cyberbullying can result in some criminal consequence (even if the child's law protects them) and civil consequences (financial compensation for the damage caused). The harried child suffers a real drama, does not usually talk about what happens to him, out of fear, because of shame or even because he gets to blame himself for what happens to him.
The harasser and the victim of cyberbullying
The age, both of the aggressors and the victims of cyberbullying, is understood between 11 and 16 years, the full stage where children are being trained as people.
Stalkers come from any layer of society, but they all have some features in common. All have been educated in values such as submission or arrogance, not in equality, and are accustomed to overwhelm the other. The aggrieved adolescents, on the other hand, tend to be very overprotected, timid children with a severe difficulty in socializing and communicating.
Cyber-stalkers lose the ethical vision of the use they are giving to technology, in addition to thinking that they are not causing harm to others. They are young people who have a severe dysfunction in their empathic capacity, not being able to put themselves in the place of the victim.
Measures to take before a case of cyberbullying at home
1. Changes in mood, abandonment of the group of friends, fear of relating, etc. are some of the external manifestations of the adolescent victim of cyberbullying.
2. Get help and tell. If you suspect that your child may be a victim of this cyberbullying, you should seek help in your immediate environment: friends, teachers, school counselor, etc.
3. In case of confirming suspicions, it is important to take the appropriate measures to put an end to such an unpleasant and dangerous situation by resorting, if there were no other remedy, to the complaint to the competent authorities.
4. If your child is the harassed, try to talk to him so that he can express his concerns and help him to channel the possible solutions.
5. If on the other hand it is the harasser dYou have to deepen the affective education of your adolescent, because it is evident that there is something that squeaks.
From time to time, it is good to take out theme of cyberbullying in family conversations. On the one hand, we can take the opportunity to provide training and information to our children in this field. On the other, it will help us to probe how our child reacts, intuiting if everything is going well, if he is being a victim more or if we may have a harasser at home.
Ana Aznar
Advice: Fernando García Fernández. Director of communication. Irabia School (Pamplona)
