These days, bullies aren’t just people you encounter in real-life on the playground or in home room. They’re also people that pester you online. This means that, unlike years past, when kids come home from school, they’re not away from the bullies; the bullying can follow them into their most safest of spaces.

So, as we enter another school year, what can we do to ensure our children are safe from cyberbullies when surfing the web?

Here are some tips:

Talk with Your Children

Ask them if they’re experiencing any bullying in school or if they’ve encountered it on the internet. Is it the same person or people both off and online?

If they are in fact experiencing cyberbullying, sit down with them to review the sites where they’re receiving these abusive messages, and screenshot all abuse before deleting or replying. If it’s another child at someone at your child’s school, you can use this as evidence and take it to the school’s administration for corrective action. If it’s someone your child doesn’t know, you can help him or her block this person from all of their accounts and notify any social media or page admins that the abuse is taking place.

Protect Them

ID Mentor protects children from cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and other types of predators online. It also provides safety measures against identity theft; after all, children are 51 times more likely to fall victim to identity theft than adults.

Putting these security measures in place will help your child not just now, but in the future. That’s because as technology continues to evolve, their lives will be further and further enmeshed with the digital world.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, it’s important to keep your children from experiencing emotionally damaging situations due to predatory behavior online. That’s why improving your child’s privacy and security on social media and the internet can keep him or her become less stressed and not worry about being digitally harassed anywhere at any time.