Mobile Phone Bullying

What is mobile phone bullying? 

  • Abusive calls or messages. 
  • Silent calls. 
  • Malicious text messages. 
  • Sending offensive or humiliating images. 
  • Spreading a personal number around (using phones or internet). 
  • Taking other people’s phones and using them for any of above. 

How to keep your children safe

The most important thing is to be very careful about who they give their number to. If your child is being bullied by phone you may need to buy a new sim card so that you can change their number. If this is too expensive you could ask your child to turn the phone off for a week/month to see if this stops it, you may then need to make other arrangements so that you know where they are, for example asking your child’s close friend if you can pay a top up each week for your child to use their phone.

Generally the advice around malicious calls is that after saying ‘hello’ you should wait for the other person to tell you who they are, malicious callers often hang up if they don’t get a reaction. Stay calm, don’t give any personal information, turn the phone off for a short period, screen calls (use answering machine) and don’t lend people their phone (they may just have to say they have no credit). Lock the keypad so that, if it is taken, the chances are it can’t be used. Contact the school or the police if the calls are particularly worrying.

Make sure your child knows not to pass on rude or embarrassing images or text and that distributing sexual pictures of other young people is illegal. They should think carefully before sending any picture from their phone. Once it is sent they have lost control and it may be copied, changed or used on the Internet. Discuss these issues with your child and ask them to tell you about any images or messages they feel uncomfortable about. Keep a copy of these and contact the mobile operator or police as appropriate.

Useful Links 

Chat danger website - Info for young people on staying safe on mobiles and in chat rooms, online games and Instant Messenger.

If your child wants to talk to someone else in confidence about how being bullied is affecting them, they could call Childline – 0800 1111