Strategies for Fighting Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying
Digital Citizenship
Internet & Mobile

Cyberbullying is everyone’s business and the best response is a pro-active or preventative one. From the outset, we can reduce the risks associated with internet use if we engage in an open discussion with our children about their online activities and set up rules that will grow along with them. Cyberbullying is strongly connected with moral disengagement[1] – the ways we can fool ourselves into thinking it’s all right to do something we know is wrong or to not do something we know is right – so activating kids’ empathy and moral judgment is a key aspect of preventing both offline and online bullying.[2]

Recommendations for platforms

Research on cyberbullying has identified a number of different things that platforms such as online games and social networks can do to address cyberbullying:

  • Involve young people in the development of new tools and features. Youth are the experts on their own experience and on how they and their peers use platforms.[3] (It’s also important to ensure that a diversity of youth are represented – especially those groups that have been identified as being most at risk.)
  • Establish that bullying and similar behaviours are not normal on the platform. People who use games and social networks are often subject to pluralistic ignorance: while they may believe that certain behaviours are wrong, they mistakenly believe that most other people in the community disagree. More than half of Canadian youth would be more likely to respond to things like prejudice online if they thought that most other users agreed with them.[4]
  • Make sure users know the platform’s rules and policies, especially when they first join, and be clear about how those rules will be enforced:[5] “When a young person signs on to a new platform or app for the first time, their experience will set the tone for how they use and interact within that tool in the future.”[6] Participants in MediaSmarts’ research said they would be more likely to report things like slurs if the rules were clear and they had evidence that the platform was enforcing them.[7]
  • Provide “empathy prompts” that remind users to think about the impact their words or actions could have on others[8] and provide users with education and support in managing their emotions and resolving conflict.[9]
  • Educate parents about the ways that cyberbullying and online conflict can occur on their platforms and ways to prepare children to deal with them.[10]
  • Promote popular users who are known for positive behaviour. Fewer than five percent of youth ages six to 12 named a YouTuber as an inspiration for kindness,[11] but these are precisely the people who are likely to have an impact on kids’ sense of what is normal and acceptable in a community.[12]

These best practices don’t just benefit youth, but the platforms as well. Cyberbullying and other “toxic” behaviours in online games, for example, can cost a company up to a third of their potential revenue.[13]

Strategies for homes and schools

In order to fight cyberbullying effectively, we need to change the culture in which it happens, starting with helping kids understand that what may seem like “just a joke” can have a powerful effect on someone else. It’s also important to teach them that cyberbullying may be less common than they think it is:[14] when young people believe that bullying behaviour is the norm, they’re more likely to engage in and tolerate it – and when they understand how uncommon bullying actually is, bullying rates drop.[15]

Strategies at home

  • Both schools and homes should create online agreements or contracts for computer use, with input from students or kids. Make sure your agreement contains clear rules about ethical online behaviour – MediaSmarts’ research has shown that kids are less likely to cyberbully others if know that it’s against your household rules.[16] You can use our Family Online Rules tip sheet or our Family Guidelines for New Tech Devices to come up with appropriate rules for your home.
  • It’s important to make youth aware of school and household rules about bullying. Rather than focusing on the penalties, make sure they are clear on what behaviour is expected of them. Rules need to be flexible and focused on resolving the situation, as opposed to punishing the perpetrator. Zero tolerance policies and harsh punishments make youth less likely to report bullying when it happens and criminalizing normal behaviour like mutual teasing only makes them feel less respect for the law. What may be more valuable than firm rules are clear, well-established procedures that let kids know what to do when they witness or are targeted by bullying.
    • The most important rule is that kids should come to you when they have a problem online – and you should promise to support them and help find a solution rather than taking a punitive approach. That only works, however, if the written rules are the same as the implicit If we tell kids to come to us when they have a problem but punish them when they do – for instance, by cutting off their internet access or taking away their cell phone – they’ll quickly learn what the real rules are.[17]
  • With younger children, helping to develop empathy and emotional health are key. Encourage them to think about how online experiences might make other people feel, such as when sharing a photo with a relative online.[18] It’s also important to clearly communicate our expectations for their behaviour and to help them develop moral thinking that is focused more on rules and social codes than fear of punishment. Helping kids develop their emotional vocabulary, and fostering the habit of talking about their feelings, can also make them more resilient to negative online experiences like cyberbullying.[19]
  • Rules for younger children should deal with online interactions in games. If kids are playing an online with friends they know offline, encourage them to turn off the game’s chat function and use another way of communicating (like a voice or video chat app).
  • Once they reach the tween and teen years, we need to start teaching them about healthy relationships – and how to recognize unhealthy ones. This is the age where kids are most sensitive to social norms, so making them aware of how uncommon cyberbullying really is – as well as working to make it socially unacceptable – is the most effective approach. At the same time, we have to push teens to develop a personal morality that’s less legalistic and independent of social rules. In one study, middle school students who expressed a personal moral conviction that bullying was wrong were the only ones who stood up to it consistently.[20]
    • As tween and teens become more independent and private, help them to identify sources of support other than you. Ask them, “If there was something bothering you that you didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about, who could you talk to?” Make sure they know about online counseling services like Kids Help Phone, as well.
    • Maintaining good sleep hygiene is key to tweens and teens’ mental health and actually makes kids less likely to cyberbully others.[21] Keep screens out of kids’ bedrooms and maintain a regular bedtime schedule.
  • For teenagers, social activity online is intense. This is the time to discuss the nature of your teen’s online interactions and, more specifically, their responsible use of the internet. Research has shown that kids who think about how their parents would feel about what they do online are significantly less likely to cyberbully others.[22]

“My mom and dad have always taught me to have respect for others, even online. So I would say it’s because I don’t want to disappoint them.” Twelve-year-old boy[23]

  • Focusing on empathy and emotional health can be useful for keeping drama from turning into harassment and preventing the mutual-conflict form of relationship violence. Research has found that youth who are better able to identify how targets and perpetrators of bullying feel are less likely to engage in bullying and more likely to support the target if they witness it.[24]
    • Encourage kids to never post or reply to something in anger, but instead “walk away” from the situation and wait until they’ve cooled down.
    • Tell them to remember that a lot of the cues we use to tell when someone is kidding – as well as the ones we use to see if we’ve hurt someone’s feelings – aren’t there when we’re communicating online, so we should always start by assuming the best of the other person and then talk conflicts out in person rather than online.
    • Finally, reassure your children that they don’t have to go through anything alone. Talk to them about online issues early, before anything goes wrong, and keep talking as they get older so that they know they can come to you when they have a problem: “Teens will approach their parents for help with social issues if they believe their parents will listen without judgment.”[25]
      • All of this is equally true when it comes to romantic relationships. Tweens and teens need to be taught to recognize the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship such as when one partner tries to control, isolate or humiliate the other. 
    • Young people look to social norms – including their families, their peers and media – to see what is normal in romantic relationships, as well. As kids start to get interested in relationships, make sure you’re aware of what they’re watching, playing and listening to and be ready to talk about ways that they depict relationships: TV shows, music, video games and advertising can all reflect unhealthy attitudes like possessiveness, conflict and even violence as being normal,[26] but we can also make a point of highlighting when characters in media are being kind, compassionate and supportive[27] and, for younger children, clearly explaining moral lessons in media.[28]

We also need to teach kids how to react when someone is mean to them online. Give them the tip sheet What to Do if Someone is Mean to You Online and make sure they understand the key points:

  • Don’t fight back. A lot of times bullies are looking to get a rise out of the kids they are targeting and fighting back just gives them what they want. Muting or blocking the perpetrator(s) can make it easier to resist the urge to respond to them, as can stepping away from the platform or device where it’s happening.[29]
  • Save the evidence. Tell your children to make sure they have a record of what happened if somebody is mean to them online. If it’s something that was sent directly to them, make sure they save it. If it’s something that can be deleted (a tweet, a status update, etc.) have them take a screenshot (http://www.take-a-screenshot.org/).
  • Talk to somebody. Make sure that your kids know that they can always come to you or another trusted adult if they are in trouble: feeling supported at home and school can make the difference in how badly youth are affected by experiencing cyberbullying.[30] If there’s no one they can talk to offline, remind them that they can contact Kids Help Phone (http://www.kidshelpphone.ca) and talk to one of their trained counselors.
  • Don’t blame yourself. Remind your kids that it’s not their fault if they are being cyberbullied. Nothing they do makes it okay for people to be mean to them, and nothing about them justifies people being mean to them.

If you learn that your child has cyberbullied someone else, help them understand that doing so “inflicts harm and causes pain in the real world.”[31] Apply an appropriate consequence such as an apology or some form of restitution; taking away access to the device or platform where it happened should be done only as a last resort, since it may discourage your child from coming to you in the future.

After a child has been involved in a cyberbullying situation in any way – whether as a target, a perpetrator, a witness or some combination of all three – parents should also “pay even greater attention to [their] technology use” and talk to them more often about what they’re doing online. In general it is not a good idea to spy on kids, either by using surveillance software or by secretly checking their accounts, “since it conveys distrust and may encourage youth to go further underground.”[32] If you decide this is a necessary condition of them being able to use a device or access a particular platform, make sure your kids know that you’re doing this and make clear to them how they can regain your trust.[33]

See our Parents’ Guide to Cyberbullying for more information and the Resources for Parents section for practical tools for helping your kids avoid and deal with cyberbullying.

Strategies at school

Schools have started to become more proactive about confronting bullying, but too often these efforts fall into stereotypes, emphasize unrealistic worst-case scenarios and are presented as one-time-only interventions. Youth participants in MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wireless World study repeatedly said that they had experienced anti-cyberbullying programs – usually one-time assemblies – that not only failed to resonate with them but made them take the issue less seriously. They were also often reluctant to report bullying because they felt that teachers were likely to escalate a situation into more than what it was, possibly as a result of teachers being bound by zero-tolerance policies.[34]

Youth often overestimate how common – and therefore how socially acceptable – bullying really is, which has an effect on how likely they are to engage in it. The good news is that when they’re made aware of how uncommon it actually is, they’re less likely to engage in it.[35] It’s also possible to change social norms – and bullying rates – by  students who are “social referents” – not necessarily the most popular, but ones whose “behavior is observed by many other” students[36] – and people who are role models to youth speak out against bullying.

Effective intervention programs, on the other hand, include the whole school, provide support both for targets and perpetrators after an incident; and work at multiple levels – in the classroom, school-wide and in connection with parents and the surrounding community.[37] For this reason, it’s also important for schools to help parents understand the risks and realities of cyberbullying and digital media more generally.[38]  

How should schools respond to a cyberbullying incident? Cyberbullying experts Samir Hinduja and Justin Patchin, in their book Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, recommend the following steps:

  • Determine whether there is an immediate threat to anyone;
  • Make sure the target is safe;
  • Provide support, compassion and empathy to the target;
  • Monitor the accused perpetrator, if known, and keep them separate from the target;
  • Collect any available evidence;
  • Contact parents or guardians;
  • Contact the online platform(s) where the incident occurred;
  • Contact law enforcement if appropriate;
  • Enforce school rules if appropriate; and
  • Contact the school or board/district’s legal counsel if appropriate.[39]

There is also evidence that “employing restorative principles such as active listening, empathy, and collective decision-making” when responding to a cyberbullying incident may be more effective than trying to identify a specific target and perpetrator,[40] such as by focusing on restitution and reconciliation rather than imposing punishment.[41]

See the Resources for Teachers section for practical tools to teach students to behave ethically online and for addressing cyberbullying in your school. It’s also important to teach students related digital skills such as “managing privacy and security settings, being aware of blocking and reporting mechanisms on different platforms and considering their information-sharing practices and contacts (audiences) that are added to their accounts”[42] and how to “find, evaluate, and share information responsibly and engage in constructive conversation with others from diverse backgrounds”[43] as well as countering the gender stereotypes that may lead youth to excuse or even encourage some bullying behaviours.[44] Having students make media can also be a way of teaching them empathy and perspective-taking.[45] Consult MediaSmarts’ Digital Media Literacy Framework for lessons on these subjects as well as related topics such as online hate.

Strategies for empowering witnesses

Witnesses can have a huge impact on cyberbullying. When they take positive action, they can shut a situation down, help a target feel less impact and even change the culture of online spaces. However, while a majority of Canadian youth want to intervene when they witness cyberbullying, they often choose not to. Most often, this is because they are afraid of making things worse for the target or of becoming targets themselves.[46]

The good news is that many youth who witness bullying do something about it. 64 percent of the students in MediaSmarts’ research said that they had done something to help someone who was experiencing online meanness.[47]

It’s well established that when witnesses to bullying stand up and defend the target, it can make a tremendous and positive difference – but not in every situation. There may be just as many cases where intervening can do greater harm to the target, the witness or both. Witnesses may have a number of valid reasons for not wanting to report bullying when they see it. There’s also no question that it’s possible for witnesses to do a great deal of harm, whether it’s by directly joining in the bullying, encouraging the perpetrator or even re-victimizing the target by sharing a bullying post or video.

To empower our children and teens to be active and ethical witnesses, we need to give them better advice than just “stand up.” Each bullying situation is different and complex and we need to teach kids to “first, do no harm”: before you do anything as a witness, think about how it might make things worse. Imagine, for example, if a straight or closeted gay youth is being harassed with homophobic comments and a well-meaning witness tries to defend him by saying “there’s nothing wrong with being gay!” Despite their good intentions, the witness will have unwittingly contributed to the bullying.

As well as teaching them to think before they act, we can give youth a range of things to do when they witness bullying: the more tools and strategies young people have, the more likely they are to intervene.[48] Confronting the perpetrator publicly can be effective, but there are also times when doing so will only make them feel defensive (especially if they feel themselves to be the target). A private confrontation may be more effective, especially between friends.

One approach that applies both to cyberbullying and the less severe forms of online hate is to teach youth to call someone in, rather than calling them out. Calling in starts by assuming that the person didn’t mean to hurt anyone by what they said or did, while being clear about what they said or did and why it was hurtful. Calling in usually happens in private (for instance, you could send them a private message), so they aren’t ashamed or embarrassed. Calling in can be done using phrases like “I’m sure you didn’t mean anything bad, but did you think about how somebody else might see it differently?” or “I’m really surprised to hear you say something like that. It doesn’t sound like you.”

In cases where drama is just beginning to tip into harassment, efforts to mediate can be very valuable. Documenting bullying and reporting it can also be appropriate responses, especially in cases where there’s a clear process for reporting bullying. Make sure that children know how to report bullying in any online environment that they use, such as social networks and online games, and if their school has a procedure make sure they know it too. Finally, comforting the target can have a tremendous effect – research has shown that targets of bullying often come to blame themselves if nobody shows them any support.[49]

Impact! How to Make a Difference When You Witness Bullying Online is a resource that can be used at home or in the classroom to encourage and empower youth to act when they witness cyberbullying.

Impact! was inspired by research that was conducted by MediaSmarts and PREVnet, Canada’s Centre for Excellence on research and resources for bullying prevention, on young Canadians’ experiences as witnesses to cyberbullying. Its purpose is to empower young people to stand up to cyberbullying by providing them with a range of strategies for taking action, to give them practice in using those strategies and to help them decide which strategies are appropriate in different situations. The title was chosen to underline that online meanness and cruelty – even if it’s “just a joke” or happens in the context of drama – can have serious consequences, and to make students understand that they can have an impact when they witness cyberbullying.

The centrepiece of this resource is an interactive tool that guides users through their decision-making process by asking questions such as “Is it clear who’s the bully and who’s the target” and “Do you think the target being threatened or in danger right now?” Each answer guides the student towards a list of options that are appropriate to the situation and sample “scripts” which they can use when talking to targets or bullies.

The tool is supported by a lesson plan for Grades 7-9 that uses roleplaying[50] to develop empathy and to let students practice the different strategies they learn, as well as a series of classroom posters that challenge the reasons students frequently give for not intervening such as “I want to say something, but I don’t think anyone will listen to me” and “I’m afraid that if I speak out, I’ll be next.”

Moral dilemmas about cyberbullying

We can help young people develop a personal morality that will guide them to make good decisions by discussing moral dilemmas that relate to the different aspects of this issue. It’s important that a moral dilemma not have a clear right answer so that it gives youth practice in moral reasoning.

To help prepare kids for what they might do when they witness cyberbullying, we might use a moral dilemma like this one:

While playing an online game, Jeff sees his friend Mike being harassed by another player, Allen, who is “killing” Mike’s character and then ambushing him each time he’s returned to the game (this is called “spawn camping,” a major breach of etiquette in gaming culture). Jeff knows, however, that Mike has verbally abused Allen in the past, often calling him names and refusing to allow him to join teams. Although Jeff and Mike often play together, Jeff has never done anything when Mike has bullied Allen. What should he do now?

Some questions you can lead children to consider are:

  • Whether Mike has “earned” the treatment because of what he’s done to Allen;
  • Whether the difference between how severe the two behaviours are (verbal abuse and exclusion versus making it impossible to play the game) makes a difference;
  • Whether it matters that what Mike did is common and accepted in the game’s culture, while Allen’s behaviour isn’t; and
  • whether Jeff should take into consideration the possible consequences of reporting either Mike or Allen to the game’s moderators.

Keeping in mind that kids usually give more weight to a moral argument one level above their own, you might suggest to a child who’s in Stage I or II of moral development (motivated by hope of reward or fear of punishment) how they think Mike and Allen’s actions – and any action Jeff might take – will affect the community within the game and everybody’s ability to enjoy it; someone who’s in Stage III or IV (concerned mostly with social codes and laws) can be encouraged to consider which action would be most likely to match the spirit of the game’s rules (which all aim to make sure that everyone can play the game and have fun) or meet the principle that everyone is entitled to respect.

As well as witnessing cyberbullying, youth may be put into a position where they’re tempted to perpetrate it themselves.

Imagine that Mary, while editing video of a school dance for the yearbook, finds footage of a girl named Emily who is apparently unaware that she has a large pizza sauce stain on her shirt. Emily was once part of Mary’s circle of friends but has in the last few months been excluded and become the target of a lot of teasing. Emily knows that if she posts the video all of her friends will share and “like” it and, because of the food stain, Emily will receive lots of teasing about her weight. What should Mary do?

Questions we might consider are:

  • Whether it makes a difference that the video was shot at a public event so people might have already seen the stain;
  • Whether it’s worse because Emily used to be Mary’s friend; and
  • Whether it’s worse because Mary found the video while doing work for the school rather than filming it herself.

Children who are in Stages I or II can be encouraged to think about whether it’s good for a group to turn on its members and to wonder whether the same thing might happen to Mary if she encourages that kind of behaviour. Kids in Stages III and IV can be asked if Mary has a higher level of responsibility because she’s using school equipment and has been put in a position of trust (she wouldn’t have access to the footage if she weren’t working on the yearbook) and whether all people have a right to dignity, even if they do spill pizza sauce on their shirt. What would Mary want Emily to do if their positions were reversed?

That question shows that it’s not just witnesses and perpetrators of bullying that may face moral dilemmas, but targets of bullying as well.

Imagine that Heather, a student whose dance videos on YouTube have received many nasty comments from an older student named Derek and his friends, goes to check her Facebook page in the school computer lab and finds that Derek was just using it to check his Facebook – and left it logged in. Now she has the opportunity to get at all his private photos, send nasty messages while pretending to be him or change his password and lock him out of the account. What should she do?

Kids in Stages I and II of moral development can be encouraged to think about what effect this might have on other people and the school in general (people’s feelings might really be hurt by the fake messages and it might lead to Facebook being blocked at the school) and about the fact that Facebook has strict rules against impersonating another user. Those who are in Stages III and IV can be asked to consider whether the fact that Derek’s right to control his property makes impersonating worse than his nasty comments on YouTube (which is essentially a public space) and whether the principle that “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies in this situation.

[1] Lo Cricchio, M. G., García-Poole, C., te Brinke, L. W., Bianchi, D., & Menesini, E. (2021). Moral disengagement and cyberbullying involvement: A systematic review. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(2), 271-311.

[2] Meter, D. J., & Bauman, S. (2018). Moral disengagement about cyberbullying and parental monitoring: Effects on traditional bullying and victimization via cyberbullying involvement. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 38(3), 303-326.

[3] Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital (2023). Creating a Positive Foundation for

Greater Civility in the Digital World. Boston, MA: Boston Children’s Hospital. https://digitalwellnesslab.org

[4] Brisson-Boivin, Kara. (2019). “Pushing Back Against Hate Online.” MediaSmarts.

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[5] Matias, J.N., et al. (2022) Study Results: How well do harassment prevention interventions transfer between communities? CatLab. https://citizensandtech.org/2022/08/harassment-prevention-across-communities/

[6] Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital (2023). Creating a Positive Foundation for

Greater Civility in the Digital World. Boston, MA: Boston Children’s Hospital. https://digitalwellnesslab.org

[7] Brisson-Boivin, Kara. (2019). “Pushing Back Against Hate Online.” MediaSmarts.

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[8] Quintana-Orts, C., Mérida-López, S., Rey, L., Chamizo-Nieto, M. T., & Extremera, N. (2023). Understanding the role of emotion regulation strategies in cybervictimization and cyberaggression over time: It is basically your fault!. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 17(2).

[9] Macaulay, P. J., Steer, O. L., & Betts, L. R. (2024). Bystander intervention to cyberbullying on social media. In Handbook of Social Media Use Online Relationships, Security, Privacy, and Society Volume 2 (pp. 73-99). Academic Press.

[10] Popovac, M., Fine, P. A., & Hicken, S. A. (2024). Children and adolescents’ experiences of cyberaggression and cyberbullying on social media and priorities for intervention and prevention efforts. In Handbook of Social Media Use Online Relationships, Security, Privacy, and Society Volume 2 (pp. 3-36). Academic Press.

[11] Bailey, L. (2020) 85% of kids learn kindness from their parents. Kidscreen. https://kidscreen.com/2020/02/05/85-of-kids-learn-kindness-from-their-parents/

[12] Paluck, E. L., Shepherd, H., & Aronow, P. M. (2016). Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(3), 566-571

[13] Kowert, R. (2023) Positive Game Cultures are Good Business. Take This. https://www.takethis.org/2023/07/positive-game-cultures-are-good-business/

[14] Perkins, H. W., Craig, D. W., & Perkins, J. M. (2011). Using social norms to reduce bullying: A research intervention among adolescents in five middle schools. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14(5), 703-722.

[15] Tolmatcheff, C., Galand, B., Roskam, I., & Veenstra, R. (2022). The effectiveness of moral disengagement and social norms as anti‐bullying components: A randomized controlled trial. Child development, 93(6), 1873-1888.

[16] MediaSmarts. (2023). “Young Canadians in a Wireless World, Phase IV: Relationships and Technology - Online Meanness and Cruelty.” MediaSmarts. Ottawa.

[17] Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2023). Bullying beyond the schoolyard: Preventing and responding to cyberbullying. Corwin press.

[18] Walsh, E. (2022) 5 Ways to Build Emotional Skills for Social Media (Long before kids have their own accounts) Spark & Stitch Institute. https://sparkandstitchinstitute.com/5-ways-to-build-emotional-skills-for-social-media/

[19] Erreygers, S., Vandebosch, H., Vranjes, I., Baillien, E., & De Witte, H. (2019). Feel good, do good online? Spillover and crossover effects of happiness on adolescents’ online prosocial behavior. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(4), 1241-1258.

[20] Silvia Diazgranados Ferrans, Robert L. Selman and Luba Falk Feigenberg. Rules of the Culture and Personal Needs: Witnesses’ Decision-Making Processes to Deal with Situations of Bullying in Middle School. Harvard Educational Review, Winter 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20230611024511/https://www.hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-82-number-4/herarticle/witnesses%e2%80%99-decision-making-processes-to-deal-with

[21] Erreygers, S., Vandebosch, H., Vranjes, I., Baillien, E., & De Witte, H. (2018). The longitudinal association between poor sleep quality and cyberbullying, mediated by anger. Health Communication. doi:10.1080/10410236.2017.1422098

[22] Patchin, J.W. (2022) Vicarious Supervision: Preventing Problematic Behaviors Online through Positive Parent Child Relationships. https://Cyberbullying.org.

[23] Patchin, J.W. (2022) Vicarious Supervision: Preventing Problematic Behaviors Online through Positive Parent Child Relationships. https://Cyberbullying.org.

[24] Bonoti, F., Andreou, E., Mantzari, S., & Tsoungou, V. (2023). Drawing an Angry Perpetrator and a Sad Target: Children’s Understanding of Emotions of School Bullying Perpetrators and Targets. International Journal of Bullying Prevention, 1-10.

[25] Hurley, K. (2019) “Three ways to teach kids to find compassion and empathy behind the screen.” The Washington Post.

[26] Martins, N. (2020). Effects of Media Use on Social Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence. The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology, 1-5.

[27] Bailey, L. (2020) 85% of kids learn kindness from their parents. Kidscreen. https://kidscreen.com/2020/02/05/85-of-kids-learn-kindness-from-their-parents/

[28] Wong, M. (2019) “Explaining moral lessons in media can help children behave more prosocially.” The Aggie. Retrieved from https://theaggie.org/2019/08/20/explaining-moral-lessons-in-media-can-help-children-behave-more-prosocially/

[29] Patchin, J. W., & Hinduja, P. D. S. (2020). Tween Cyberbullying. USA: Cyberbullying Research Center.

[30] Popovac, M., Fine, P. A., & Hicken, S. A. (2024). Children and adolescents’ experiences of cyberaggression and cyberbullying on social media and priorities for intervention and prevention efforts. In Handbook of Social Media Use Online Relationships, Security, Privacy, and Society Volume 2 (pp. 3-36). Academic Press.

[31] Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2023). Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response. Cyberbullying Research Center (cyberbullying.org).

[32] Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2023). Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response. Cyberbullying Research Center (cyberbullying.org).

[33] Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2023). Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response. Cyberbullying Research Center (cyberbullying.org).

[34] Steeves, Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Talking to Youth and Parents. MediaSmarts, 2012.

[35] Tolmatcheff, C., Galand, B., Roskam, I., & Veenstra, R. (2022). The effectiveness of moral disengagement and social norms as anti‐bullying components: A randomized controlled trial. Child development, 93(6), 1873-1888

[36] Paluck, E. L., Shepherd, H., & Aronow, P. M. (2016). Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(3), 566-571.

[37] Macaulay, P. J., Steer, O. L., & Betts, L. R. (2024). Bystander intervention to cyberbullying on social media. In Handbook of Social Media Use Online Relationships, Security, Privacy, and Society Volume 2 (pp. 73-99). Academic Press.

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