Barnardos survey says 60% of children would not tell their parents about being cyberbullied
A total of 60% of children have said they never tell their parents if they were cyberbullied and they were not sure how to have this conversation with their parents should they need to. This is according to the Barnardos Online Safety Programme, which ran a survey and hosted seven focus groups with more than 340 children aged 8-12 in schools across Ireland in June 2022.
More than half (53%) of those surveyed had been cyberbullied, either once or many times, while 62% have seen other people being cyberbullied. A total of 18% said they had been cyberbullied in a way that really affected ability to learn and feel safe at school. Meanhile, 25% said they had cyberbullied others.
The Barnardos Online Safety Programme was designed to help inform its work with children, parents, and teachers. This September marks the fourth year of a five-year partnership between Google.org and Barnardos to roll out online safety workshops across the country.
“It is very concerning to hear that many of the children spoken to wouldn’t tell their parents if they were being cyberbullied,” said Barnardos CEO Suzanne Connolly. “This shows how important it is that we roll out our preventative online safety workshops for both children and their parents alike. Our goal is to help parents and children have an open dialogue about online safety.
“It is vital that the views and experiences of children who have directly faced cyberbullying continue to inform the development of the Department of Education’s next Action Plan on bullying and are involved in measuring its success. Given that over half of children (53%) have experienced cyberbullying themselves and almost half (48%) said they would tell nobody if they were cyberbullied, we feel the Action Plan, which we hope to see published soon, should recommend online safety learning be an essential part of the school curriculum – because childhood lasts a lifetime.”
The Programme, which was supported by Google, has helped more than 40,000 children and families with the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety.
Ryan Meade, public policy manager, Google Ireland said: “At Google we created Be Internet Legends to help young people be safe, confident explorers of the online world. This includes being comfortable talking about any negative experiences with a trusted adult.”
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