Social media plays a huge role in young people’s lives today. Adolescents are now spending hours and hours on Facebook and Snapchat. Scrolling through Instagram is more popular than ever before. Tweeting about your day is now a second nature for teens.
However, mum Leigh Davey believes the internet causes more harm than good. When her daughter was severely bullied, she begged parents to teach their children about how to be kind to one another online.
She shared their harrowing story on the Love What Matters Facebook page.
The concerned mum wrote, “Our beautiful girl has been subjected to some awful bullying at school. It's been very private seven months for us, dealing with this, immediate family only.”
The bullying has had a severely negative impact on the girl’s mental health.
“We spent over five hours in A&E with psychiatrists, doctors and nurses because our girl had a plan to commit suicide,” Leigh revealed.
“In this age of social media, children think it’s OK to send hateful messages without consequences."
Leigh now wants parents to educate children about the dangers of being nasty to one another online. She believes that it’s the parent's responsibility to teach their children how to behave responsibly online.
The mum shared that she wasn’t impressed with how the school reacted to the bullying claims, “Our daughter was subjected to weeks of ridicule.”
She revealed that children in her school posted offensive videos of the young girl, but they weren’t punished for their cruel act: “The bully only loses recess and lunch privileges. This is infant school punishment.”
The worried mum pleaded with parents to keep an eye on their children’s social media accounts as they are still developing, “In this awful age of social media check your children's messages. Their devices are a privilege, nothing more, nothing less, so please make sure they are being polite and respectful in their messages.”
Leigh encouraged parents to teach their children how to talk to one another rather than communicating via social media.
The mum shared, “Bullying affects the whole family, not just the bullied. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop now!”
Do you think it would help if schools educated children about social media usage?
