How to prevent cyberbullying

Online safety advice video on best ways to prevent cyberbullying from happening

Quick tips
Helpful ways to prevent cyberbullying

• Take an active interest in their digital life from the start
• Set parental controls on broadband, devices, apps and platforms
• Learn as much as you can about cyberbullying
• Start having age-appropriate conversations early
• Encourage positive online experiences
• Talk about the consequences of what they say and do online
• Recognise bullying behaviours
• Know when and how to report those behaviours

Staying safe on social media

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More on this page

Explore the different ways you can prevent cyberbullying and protect your child online.

• Cyberbullying facts
• Set their devices up for safety with parental controls
• Stay informed
• Have regular conversations
• How can I protect a vulnerable child?
• Featured cyberbullying articles

Cyberbullying facts

Around 1 in 10 children experience cyberbullying from people they don’t know. This number increases to nearly 2 in 5 for children with vulnerabilities, according to our research.

Compared to other harms, this number is quite low. However, the impact of cyberbullying is much higher when compared with other online harms. In fact, 55% of children who have experienced cyberbullying from strangers say it has a high impact.

As such, setting parental controls is a good way to prevent cyberbullying, especially from strangers. You can limit who can contact your child, how your child can communicate and what sites or apps they can access.

Set their devices up for safety with parental controls

As a parent, decide on how you want your child to engage with others in online games, social media apps and other digital spaces. Consider what measures you’ll put in place to help protect them.

Look at privacy settings together

We’ve got some advice on using privacy settings on the most popular social apps to protect your child from interacting with strangers. There are also a range of new apps and software that block, filter and monitor online behaviour, which can help you see who your child is interacting with.

Make sure profiles are private

Use a nickname and a profile picture of their pet or favourite band, rather than themselves, and encourage them to only be friends with people they know offline. Avoid sharing personal information like school, age and location.

Set controls and privacy settings

Go to parental controls

Stay informed

It’s important to fully understand the issues you want to protect your child from. Therefore, learning what you can about cyberbullying can help prevent it. Not only will you know what to watch out for, but your child will too. And that means they will know when it’s time to come to you for help.

When discussing online safety, remember that one conversation is not enough. Agree regular check-ins with your child and remind them that they can approach you with questions.

While you probably use social networks yourself, you might want to know about new ones that your child is using or wants to use.

Use them yourself and set up your own account so you can experience what your child might see. There are also many child-friendly social networks they could use while they get ready for the likes of Snapchat and Instagram.

Managing social media activity

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Have regular conversations

The impact of cyberbullying can be devastating to a young person. The best way to protect your child is getting actively involved in their digital life.

For some parents, this can mean accessing children’s messages and social media profiles and for others, it can mean managing the parental controls to limit what they can access.

However, parental controls and device safety is only part of the picture. The most effective way to support children’s online safety is to have regular conversations. Here are some talking points to get you started:

What do they want to do online?

Before having a conversation about online safety, it’s important to establish what your child wants to do online. Do they want to connect with friends through social media or just play games? Are they going to use the internet to research their homework? Have an honest conversation about what they want and decide what you’re happy with them exploring.

Agree what actions your child will take if they see or experience cyberbullying

Agreeing actions can be a really helpful way to prepare your child for going online. Whether it’s how they can report cyberbullying they might witness or what you’d like them to do if they experience it directly, it means that your child will be more prepared. Remind them they can always check in with you if they’ve forgotten what actions you’d like them to take.

Explore online safety together

We’ve created several tools to help spark conversations and build confidence around cyberbullying issues. The Online Together Project’s interactive age-appropriate quizzes offer young people and parents the opportunity to test their understanding of different online topics. You can also explore the online bullying stories and activities from Digital Matters.

Talk about cyberbullying: Guidance by age

Start a conversation

How can I protect a vulnerable child?

All children can enjoy the benefits of getting online with the right support. In fact, children with vulnerabilities report more positive impacts from going online than children without vulnerabilities. So, if bullying happens online, taking away their access can have additional negative impacts.

If your child has a disability or other vulnerability, it’s important to offer them the right support. In most cases, this support won’t look too different from that which is given to children without vulnerabilities. However, they may need more guidance and check-ins.

Explore ways to support neurodivergent children as they take ownership of their online safety.