SAFETY TIP OF THE WEEK

“With a positive sense of self-worth, kids are less likely to be cyberbullies and are less likely to be victimized by cyberbullies. Help your child build self-worth with positive affirmations and positive thinking.”

TODAY’S TOPIC

Building Positive Self-Worth in the Age of Cyberbullying

As you and your child prepare for the upcoming school year, you may be concerned about cyberbullying. With constant access to devices that connect to the Internet, kids are exposed more than ever to cyberbullying 24/7, even when they’re in school. During the pandemic, when virtual classrooms were a necessity, kids found all kinds of ways to entertain themselves during remote learning, sometimes at the expense of other students’ learning and mental health. 

Nearly 40% of New York City Public Schools reported cyberbullying since the pandemic, and reports are increasing. Nationwide, cyberbullying has steadily risen, doubling from 2016 to 2025. On a global scale, one out of every six teenagers experiences harassment online, a study by the World Health Organization finds. When your child is a victim of cyberbullying, it can have negative impacts on their classroom engagement and on their mental health. Bullying and cyberbullying can make children feel utterly hopeless in school. 

_{WHAT CAN YOU DO?}

A recent study found that children who feel more hopeful are less likely to engage in cyberbullying or feel the negative effects of cyberbullying. But how can you help your child to feel more hopeful? Below are some tips for engendering hopefulness through positive thinking and self-worth:

• Use Positive Language and Positive Reinforcement with Your Child: When your child succeeds, it's important to acknowledge their success in a positive way. When your child fails, focusing on the positives is even more important as you address their needs. Failure, whether in school, in sports, or in their social lives, can make children feel like they have no agency, no future, and no hope. Remember that failure is not the end of a project or endeavor: it’s an opportunity to change and grow from a place of better understanding. 

• Practice Maintaining a Positive Outlook When Things Go Wrong for You: As always, it’s important to model the way for behaviors you want to see in your child. Your patience and positivity in adversity can give your child an invaluable example of how to manage their stress. Now, this doesn’t mean you should discourage expressing feelings of disappointment when things go wrong. Often the first step to moving forward with a positive attitude is to acknowledge the hard feelings or disappointment. 

• Support Your Child in Building Positive Relationships at School: Part of the beauty of being in school is that it is a place where kids build their identity and self-image. When kids have the agency to define themselves, it helps them to build their self-worth. With strong self-worth, kids are well prepared to avoid bullies and to avoid being bullies. Encourage your child to join school groups and follow their passions with their peers. 

• Trust Your Child and Take Action if They Admit that They Are Being Bullied: If your child is experiencing cyberbullying from peers at school, make sure to record the instance of cyberbullying and bring it to the attention of their school administrators. If the cyberbullying is happening outside of school, encourage your child to block or restrict the bully’s access to their online content and messaging apps. 

It is important to remember that kids most often become bullies out of a place of insecurity. They typically take to bullying others as a way of coping with their own insecurity, inflicting control on others that they can’t seem to be able to apply to situations in their own lives. Helping your child build positive self-worth is the best way to prevent them from engaging in bullying behaviors, and it will help them to be resilient if they become the victims of cyberbullies.

▶ Slang Word of the Week: “It’s giving” – used to compare how something feels or appears to something culturally identifiable.