Mai Hoa, 42, in Hanoi, entered her daughter’s room recently to investigate why she heard crying. Her 12-year-old daughter was lying on the bed crying with her face covered.

Despite her efforts, the girl refused to communicate with her mother and kept crying. Suddenly, the mobile phone rang and the girl quickly got up, took the phone and ran into the toilet to answer the phone. Before closing the door to the toilet, she shouted to her mother “I hate you”.

After a series of calls to her daughter’s friends, Hoa found that the girl was suffering from cyber bullying. The ‘culprits’ had posted a photo of the girl on private forums, school forum, Facebook and Zalo.

The girl implored her friends to pull the image down, but she failed to persuade them. The friends even threatened to post other funny photos of the girls on social networks.

The photo which made the girl cry was taken when she began going to school. Hoa could not imagine that the photo, with two missing front teeth during the days she lost her milk teeth to acquire permanent ones, would turn into a tool for bullying. 

Hoa’s daughter is not alone. Many students are bearing scars and suffering from cyber bullying. However, the more serious problem is that though the students complain to their parents, the parents are often indifferent to the complaints as they think this is just ‘play’.

Ringing the alarm bell over cyber bullying, Dang Hoang An, who holds a master’s degree in psychology, and is a former lecturer of the HCMC University of Education, said online bullying may happen on social media, messaging platforms, and be spread through games and mobile phones. It is a kind of repetitive behavior, intended to make the targeted person scared, angry or shamed.

The behaviors that demonstrate online bullying include: spreading lies or posting embarrassing photos of someone on social networks; sending messages that hurt other people or threats via digital platforms; impersonating someone and sending malicious messages to others on his behalf; impersonating someone and sending malicious messages to others under their name or through fake accounts.

Face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying often occur at the same time.

Bullying during meals

“Using words that insult, tease, and threat children on online websites such as Facebook, Zalo and TikTok by texting and calling is the most common form of bullying,” he said.

Sharing personal images and videos, posting personal information of children in association with threats are other forms of bullying. The sharing of stories, images, videos and games that contain violence, sex, stimulants and alcohol are included.

An said parents can discover the problems of their children when seeing strange behaviors. Every child reacts in his own way to bullying, but there are two major factors – they either feel an inferiority complex, or react to the actions towards them.

Most bullied children feel afraid and tend to hide the problem from their parents. A child who suddenly changes his mood, usually feels worried and avoids interactions with friends and family members is likely to be the victim of online bullying.

In other cases, when becoming the victim of bullying, many children try to take revenge, retaliate and bully other friends.

In addition to psychological changes, the victims of online bullying may undergo physical deterioration. As they think too much about bullying, they may suffer from insomnia and uncontrollable weight loss or gain. Also, their learning records get worse and they cannot concentrate. 

“Bullied children tend to cower. They are afraid of speaking out about their problem, or they don’t know where they need to start talking about this. They feel embarrassed if they are asked by parents or psychologists,” he said.

The expert stressed that families play a decisive role in educating children and helping them avoid online bullying.

“Parents must not leave their children in the ‘sea of information’, but they should guide children how to use social networks in the right way, and give advice on what they cannot share with friends or strangers,” he said.

Linh Giao