Understanding cyberbullying, recognising the signs, and practical steps to protect your child from online harassment and intimidation.
Cyberbullying is the use of digital technology, such as messaging apps, social media, or games, to deliberately and repeatedly threaten, humiliate, or exclude a child.
Cyberbullying is repeated harmful behaviour carried out through digital devices such as phones, tablets, and computers. It can happen via text messages, social media, gaming platforms, or any online space where children interact. Unlike face-to-face bullying, it can follow a child home and continue around the clock.
Cyberbullies may send threatening messages, share embarrassing images, create fake profiles to humiliate someone, or deliberately exclude a child from group chats. Because digital content can be shared rapidly and widely, the impact can escalate quickly. Anonymity online can also embolden behaviour that a person might not display in person.
In your child's behaviour
On their device
Make the no-blame promise out loud
Tell your child, in as many words, that they will never lose their phone for telling you someone is being cruel online. Fear of confiscation is the single biggest reason children hide cyberbullying, so removing that fear now is what gets you told later.
Set up blocking and reporting together
Sit with your child and turn on blocking, muting, and reporting on every app they actually use, and restrict who can message them. Knowing exactly where the buttons are makes them far more likely to act early rather than suffer in silence.
Agree a family digital agreement
Set clear, shared expectations about respectful online behaviour — including not sharing others' photos without consent, and what to do if they witness someone else being bullied. Writing it together, not imposing it, makes it stick.
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
This is practical educational content to support families. For case-specific concerns about a child's safety, contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 or your local safeguarding team.
Myth: Cyberbullying is just kids being kids — they'll grow out of it.
Fact: Cyberbullying follows a child home and around the clock, and screenshots make moments permanent. Its effects on sleep, mood, school, and mental health are real, and persistent targeted behaviour can amount to criminal harassment.
Myth: Taking the phone away is the answer.
Fact: Removing the device often feels like a punishment to the child and can stop them telling you about future problems. Blocking, reporting, keeping evidence, and involving the school work better than confiscation.
Myth: If my child isn't upset in front of me, they're fine.
Fact: Many children hide online bullying out of shame or fear of losing their device. Withdrawal, reluctance to go to school, or avoiding their phone can be the first signs — which is why an open, no-blame relationship matters.
Teach the basics of being kind online, how to block and tell an adult, and that it's always okay to come to you if someone is unkind.
As group chats and social media begin, talk about pile-ons and exclusion, screenshotting evidence, and the school's role — bullying between classmates is a school matter.
Discuss more serious forms (threats, sharing images, coordinated harassment), when it becomes a police matter, and supporting a friend who is targeted.
Focus on harassment law, evidence, reporting routes, and looking after their own and others' mental health online.
Full conversation guides: you can always tell me, first social media talk
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