By The Next Best Thing to Mummy

In this day and age, one of the many challenges facing our young people is trolling. What is this and how can we help our precious young people handle it?

A troll is a person who cyber bullies another person, typically on social media.

Signs that may alert a parent that their child is being trolled are:

- They may stop looking at their phone.

- They may make excuses not to go to school.

- They may not want to socialise by going out with friends.

- Their mood may change.

If you think that your child is a victim of a troll, talk to them. Explain why someone may become a troll - they may be doing it as a way of getting attention and thinking that they won’t get caught. As with other types of bullying, the troll may well be a coward, or is crying out for attention.

Then get your child to block and unfollow the troll on social media. Tell your child to ignore the messages, as by not getting a response the troll may get bored and stop.

Always report a troll to the police, take screen shots of messages before deleting them.

The chances are your child will also have received some positive feedback to their social media posts, concentrate on them.

Explain that their online identity is not their true self. Tell them to be aware and think about what they are posting online.

By The Next Best Thing to Mummy

You can read the original version of her blog here.