When Someone Is Being Cruel Online

Conflict between children is not new. What is new is the shape it takes online, and three differences change what actually helps.

It follows them home. There is no point in the day where it stops, no walking away from the building. It is often witnessed by an audience, which turns a private unkindness into a public one. And it leaves a record, which cuts both ways: it hurts to reread, and it is evidence.

If your child is the target

Say clearly, early, and more than once that it is not their fault. Mean words online say something about the person sending them. They are not information about your child.

Save what was said. Screenshots of messages, profiles, usernames and timestamps, before anything gets deleted. The instinct is to make it disappear, but any report will need it.

Do not reply. Responding in public almost always feeds it, because a reaction is what the exchange was for.

Block and report through the platform. Every major platform has a reporting route, and using it creates a record even when the response is slow.

If the other children are known to the school, tell the school. This is squarely their business whether or not it happened during school hours, and most schools now have an obligation here.

And resist the urge to message the other child's parent while you are angry. It usually escalates, and it often makes your child's position worse rather than better.

If your child is watching

Here is the part most advice skips, and it is the most useful part.

In almost any incident, most children involved are neither the target nor the one being cruel. They are the audience. That group is the one most able to stop it, and the one least often spoken to.

Cruelty online is loud, but it is also a coward. It depends on the crowd staying quiet. The moment one person says stop, it gives everyone else permission to remember they did not want to be part of it either.

Your child does not have to be brave or loud to be that person. Any of these counts.

Saying stop, publicly, in as few words as it takes. Messaging the target privately to ask if they are alright. Leaving the group chat. Telling an adult.

The private message is the one worth emphasising, because it is available to a child who is frightened of being next, and it matters enormously to the person receiving it.

What to ask

Rather than has anyone been mean to you, which invites a no, try: has anyone in your group been horrible to someone? What did people do?

It is easier to answer honestly about someone else, and it opens the door to the conversation you actually wanted.

If it is your child being cruel

It happens, and it is worth being ready for rather than assuming it cannot.

Children who pile on are usually following a crowd rather than leading one. The useful response is not shame, which tends to produce defensiveness, but a straightforward account of what it was like on the other end, and a clear expectation about what happens next.