Is your child struggling with cyberbullying? Find out when to seek help, how to recognise warning signs, and how a psychologist can help you find the next step.

Cyberbullying in children is not just an unpleasant argument online. It is repeated harm carried out through a phone, social media, chats, games, or other online environments that hurts, humiliates, frightens, or excludes a child from the group. It can take the form of insults, mockery, spreading rumours, sharing sensitive photos, humiliating videos, fake profiles, or deliberate exclusion from groups.

What to understand by cyberbullying

What makes cyberbullying especially difficult is that a child may have almost no safe space away from it. While face-to-face bullying sometimes ends when the child leaves school, cyberbullying can continue at home, in the evening, or at the weekend. It is enough for the child to be online. That is exactly why it can be so exhausting and psychologically overwhelming for children.

How cyberbullying can show up

A child often will not start talking openly straight away. Sometimes a parent notices changes in behaviour first. The child may become more withdrawn, more irritable, more anxious, not want to go to school, sleep worse, their school performance may drop, or they may begin to avoid their phone and the internet even if they used to enjoy them. At other times, the opposite happens — they guard their phone closely, hide the screen, or react very strongly to every new message. Warning signs often show up around devices, school, and social contact.

Why it can be so hard for a child to tell someone

Many children stay silent because they feel ashamed, are afraid the situation will get worse, or think adults will take their phone away and “solve it by banning it.” Others are afraid that nobody will believe them or that they will be seen as overreacting. That is why it is important to respond calmly and without blame. Above all, a child needs to hear that it is not their fault and that they are not alone in it.

What usually helps

What helps most is listening to the child, not downplaying what they are going through, and not starting immediately with criticism or interrogation. It is important to keep evidence such as messages, screenshots, links, photos, or videos, and to let the child describe as clearly as possible what happened. It is also useful to strengthen safety settings online, block the perpetrator where appropriate, and think through next steps together. UK safeguarding guidance and advice for parents both stress taking bullying seriously, keeping evidence, and supporting the child calmly.

When it is important to involve the school

If the cyberbullying involves classmates or affects school relationships, it makes sense to address it with the school as well. In the UK, official guidance says bullying should be reported to the school first even if it happens online or outside school, and schools have the power to act on bullying outside school premises.

When a child psychologist can help

A child psychologist can be very useful when the child becomes significantly withdrawn after the attacks, is anxious, does not want to be around people, their sleep worsens, their confidence drops, or they stop wanting to go to school. Help also makes sense when the child outwardly says everything is fine, but the parent can see that something in them is changing psychologically. Psychological support can help process shame, fear, anger, and helplessness, and restore a greater sense of safety and security.

When it is necessary to act quickly

Urgent help is needed when threats, blackmail, sharing of intimate material, dangerous stalking, pressure for an in-person meeting, or talk of self-harm, hopelessness, or not coping anymore appear. In the UK, children and young people can contact Childline on 0800 1111, adults concerned about a child can contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000, and in an immediate emergency they should call 999.

You are not alone in this

Cyberbullying in children is not something minor and not just “part of modern life” that has to be endured. It can affect a child very deeply and leave long-lasting fear, shame, and loss of confidence. But when the situation is addressed early, calmly, and with adult support, it can be managed. A child psychologist, the school, parents, and crisis support can all be important supports so that the child does not have to face it alone.