.png)
Digital Citizenship - Anti Bullying Week
This week the 14th - 18th May is Anti Bullying Week and RHS has loads of awesome activities planned:
The key messages this week aim to help develop students kindness and respect which is the ‘K’ part of our RHS CLOAK. A recent PISA survey has found that New Zealand students have the second-highest rate of bullying in the OECD. So there is a very real and urgent need in NZ to effectively deal with these issues in our schools.
Netsafe reports that one in five young people in New Zealand have been the target of online bullying which can be hard to deal with for both the young people involved and parents. Online bullying can take on many forms such as name calling, unwanted online messages, spreading rumours or lies, fake accounts used to harass people, excluding people from social activities, embarrassing pictures, videos, websites or fake profiles.
Here are some tips for dealing with online bullying adapted from the Netsafe guides that you could discuss with your children:
Don’t respond.
Don’t attack the person back.
If it is safe try talking with the person privately.
Talk to a trusted friend, family member or teacher.
Save the messages and images for evidence if needed
Cut off the person bullying you - block their phone number or social media account.
Report it if the bullying happened via social media.
The Harmful Digital Communications Act can also help you to deal with this.
Get help via Netsafe and your school.
There is more detailed information on the Netsafe website about how to deal with cyberbullying. One of the most effective ways to prevent bullying is to think of the whole group of young people in the school and use students to stop the bullying they see around them. So this week is a perfect opportunity to get involved as caregivers to discuss and role model how our young people might be able to prevent and deal with the impacts of bullying. It takes a village to raise a child and together as a school community we all have a part to play in taking responsibility and helping to build a culture of kindness and respect.
References