Your teenager finally has his first smartphone! If you're excited about this first step toward self-reliance, you can't help but be worried. Indeed, the increasingly frequent use of smartphones among adolescents can accentuate the phenomenon of bullying. Especially since social networks encourage the youngest to confide in and expose their lives online, sometimes delivering it to ill-intentioned people. What if parental vigilance could be the solution?
The smartphone:a teenager's best friend
The figure seems crazy, but it is nevertheless real:98% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 have a Smartphone (88% in middle school and 96% in high school). Nearly half of them were even able to get one by age 11 or 12.
Reassuring, the Smartphone allows you, the parent, to easily reach your child, to manage school outings, those of extracurricular activities, etc. It then becomes a practical and reassuring asset on a daily basis… Provided that its use respects a few main rules. The other side of the coin essentially concerns the addiction that it can create in a teenager and the school harassment that it can accentuate. Rumors, teasing and bullying are no longer confined here to the school, but cross the threshold of the house.
Harassment often takes the form of physical violence, but can also be more insidious when it comes to insults, unflattering photographs disseminated on social networks and the Internet, or rumors whose scope is increased by a line.
Bullying:A Common Problem
Whether it takes place online or on school grounds, bullying is increasingly common among young students. One in five adolescents has experienced bullying during their schooling.
Set smartphone usage rules
All parents agree that the Smartphone knows how to make itself indispensable on a daily basis. But when it becomes a tool of bullying, parents can take action. Increased surveillance, limitation of the duration of use, prohibition of its presence at certain times of the day… the use of the Smartphone by victims as well as by harassers must be supervised. No need to do without it, if a few rules are established from the start of its use:
Monitoring a teenager's smartphone:how to do it?
Monitoring your teenager's Smartphone can be experienced as an intrusion or a violation of their privacy. But this is not the case when it is done with kindness and intelligence. To help you, many tools are currently at your disposal.
Choose an age-appropriate package
The simplest way is to accompany the Smartphone with a blocked package. This ensures that your child will not be able to surf the Internet freely or spend all their time on it.
Choosing a monitoring system and explaining it to your child
Keeping a close eye on your child's smartphone allows you above all to protect him from possible harassment and ill-intentioned people. For this, applications have been designed and allow you to stay alert from your own Smartphone. This is the case with Spyzie which allows you to read your teenager’s chats, emails and internet searches remotely. FamiSafe, on the other hand, allows you to set keyword protection. Typed in an Internet search, this word automatically triggers an alert on your own Smartphone. Finally, Qustodio is a complete offer that allows you to monitor Smartphone use, but also to block its use, geolocate it, etc.
The government is alarmed by the phenomenon
Cyberbullying has unfortunately become all too common. The government is also increasingly concerned about the extent of the phenomenon. He has set up an e-Enfance.org site which brings together advice, files and guides to combat bullying on the Internet.
How to fight school bullying?
Are your fears confirmed? Is your child a victim of bullying? Act without delay by contacting professionals capable of supporting you. School staff and DASEN (Academic Department of National Education Services) must be informed. A protection procedure must then be put in place without delay. Do not hesitate to contact the police to file a complaint and demand, if necessary, the removal of photographs and messages published on the Internet.
With the emergence of new technologies, relationships between adolescents have sometimes become strained, even going as far as unbearable violence for the victims. To counter this phenomenon, parents can act by vigilantly accompanying the digital activities of their children.
