Your child is being cyberbullied: what parents can do
Maybe you saw a message over their shoulder, or a teacher called, or your child has simply gone quiet and started avoiding their phone. Learning that your child is being cyberbullied is painful, and the urge to fix it immediately is strong. A calm, steady first few days will do more good than a fast, forceful one, so take a breath. You are not too late, and you have not done anything wrong.
Start by listening, not solving
Kids often hide online cruelty because they fear losing their phone, making things worse, or being a burden. Tell them plainly that they are not in trouble and that you are glad they told you, or that you noticed and want to help. Ask what happened and let them finish before you respond. Resist the instinct to take the device away as your first move, since to a child that can feel like punishment for being targeted, and it may stop them from telling you next time. Ask what they would like to happen, and include them in the decisions that follow.
Save the evidence before anything disappears
Messages get deleted, accounts get renamed, and stories vanish within a day. Take screenshots that show the full screen, including the username, the date and time, and the platform. Save profile links and account IDs, since display names change easily. Write a short running log with dates and one plain sentence per incident. Keep the original messages on the device rather than deleting them, even the hard ones. If you are unsure how to capture things safely, our guide on preserving evidence in the first 24 hours walks through it step by step. Try not to reply to the bully yourself, and do not encourage your child to retaliate, because a heated exchange can muddy the record and sometimes puts your child in the wrong.
Use the reporting tools, then tighten the settings
Every major platform has a way to report harassment, and a report that includes your screenshots and the specific rule being broken tends to go further than a vague one. Block the account, and review who can message, tag, and comment on your child. Check whether the content is also being shared in group chats, since those need separate reports. If the bully keeps coming back under new names, this post on repeat account creation explains how to document the pattern. If you think your child’s own account may have been taken over, change the passwords from a device you trust and turn on two-step verification.
Bring in the school when other students are involved
When the bullying involves classmates, even if it happens off campus and after hours, the school is usually worth telling. Put your concern in writing, attach a short timeline and a few representative screenshots, and ask what the school will do and by when. Keeping the exchange in email gives you a record. Many schools and states have bullying policies that require some kind of response, and StopBullying.gov is a helpful federal resource for understanding what to ask for. If the first contact goes nowhere, ask for the next person up the chain, such as the principal or district office.
Know when it has moved beyond bullying
Some things are more serious than unkindness. Threats of violence, someone sharing or demanding intimate images, repeated stalking-style contact, or an adult pursuing your child should go to the police and not only to the school. If images are involved, Take It Down from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children can help remove them without your child having to send the images to anyone. If someone is demanding money or more photos, read our guide to financial sextortion of teens before you respond to anything. If you feel your child is in immediate danger, call 911.
Keep an eye on how your child is really doing
The messages are only part of it. Pay attention to changes in sleep, appetite, mood, or interest in friends and activities, and keep checking in gently over the following weeks, not only on the first day. If your child seems withdrawn, hopeless, or talks about hurting themselves, reach out to their pediatrician or a mental health professional right away, and in the U.S. you can call or text 988 at any hour. Being cyberbullied is not a sign of weakness, and getting support is part of recovering from it.
If the harassment is persistent, anonymous, or you want a private second set of eyes on the evidence and help working out who may be behind the accounts, GCCI can look at it for a flat fee, with no pressure to proceed.
— Gus