AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA AUTHORITY
TRANSCRIPT FOR CHATTERBOX CONVERSATION 3
INTERIOR – INFORMAL ROOM – DAY
KELLIE:
Welcome to Cybersmart's Chatterbox Series for
parents. I'm Kellie.
CARA:
I'm Cara.
GULSUM:
And I'm Gulsum.
We've all been teachers in Australian schools
and are now education advisers for the
Cybersmart educational program.
CARA:
Cybersmart Chatterbox has been designed to
help parents help their children and whole
families to find out how to be Cybersmart and
to use the internet safely. You can join the
conversation and forum by following the link
below.
KELLIE:
I once had a parent at a Cybersmart
presentation share an anecdote that life was
so much more simple in our parents' era. He
said that when deciding on a school, mum or
dad would walk out of the house, look left,
then right, and whatever school was closest
was the one you'd go to. Now that doesn't
happen so much today because there are so many
choices that we have available. Now Gulsum, as
a teacher, with advent of technology, are the
lives of our children much different to the
world we grew up in?
GULSUM:
I think the basics are the same-- the sibling
relationships and rivalries, learning to ride
a bike, learning how to make and keep friends- that's all relatively unchanged. What
technology has changed is kids having to be
aware of their digital footprints, kids as
well as adults oversharing personal
information, kids having comments, sometimes
really negative things written about them
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online or being tagged in photos when they
don't necessarily want those photos to be up
online.
And then there's cyberbullying. Nowadays with
cyber bullying, the audience is so much wider
and it's spread so much more quickly. It's
very public.
KELLIE:
Just on that word cyberbullying, it's often
being bandied around. It's in the media quite
often. Cara, what exactly does the
cyberbullying look like when you see it
online?
CARA:
Well, cyberbullying does continue to be a
major concern confronting children and young
people and their parents and let's face it,
society as a whole. Cyberbullying could be
sending abusive texts or emails. It might be
posting unkind messages or inappropriate
images on social networking sites, and often
you'll see all of the comments that come
underneath those. It's imitating others
online. It's setting up Facebook profiles. And
it’s excluding others online, and we often see
this on gaming forums. It's also doing things
like creating polls and hostile forum threads.
KELLIE:
Now when I'm listening to you speak, surely
some of these actions have to be against the
law.
CARA:
Many of the laws related to technology relate
to the federal criminal code. You're not
allowed to use a phone or a computer to
menace, harass, or cause offense. There are
also state laws that relate to things like
stalking and harassment that people can find
themselves in trouble with within the law with
what they're doing online.
GULSUM:
Cybersmart actually recommends three clear
steps if you are being targeted online-- stop,
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block, and report. So basically stop, don't
retaliate, collect whatever evidence you can
collect, block, and then report it to the site
administration or to the police.
KELLIE:
Even sometimes, the first protocol for kids,
we tell them to tell mum and dad. And the good
thing about parents that came out in recent
Cybersmart research was that parents were
actually very much aware if their child was
being subjected to cyberbullying, particularly
parents of younger kids.
But the greatest disparity that was found is
in the awareness and experience with parents
of 16 to 17-year-olds, and that followed,
then, with parents of 14 to 15-year-olds. Why
do you think teenagers start moving away from
parents and parents not being engaged with
what their kids are doing once they hit these
marks of 14, 15, 16, and 17?
CARA:
As a parent, you know your kids best. And you
will often be the people that identify changes
in behaviour. It's one of the reasons why you
actually need to start talking to kids early.
KELLIE:
In our Cybersmart presentations, we've had
parents ask some of our trainers, what happens
if you get told, or you get the phone call
that your child is the one who's actually
doing the cyberbullying to other kids?
CARA:
I think if your child is the one displaying
cyberbullying behaviour, first and foremost it
does not mean that you are a bad parent. I
definitely think that traditional punishment
such as grounding, or not allowing someone to
leave the house, that doesn't necessarily
work. You need to make it clear to child that
the behaviour is unacceptable.
And this is one of the important things. Kids
like boundaries and they need to know the
limits. They need to know what is acceptable
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to you and what isn't. Make sure you're
communicating regularly with your child's
school and that you're working together with
them. This will often mean making sure you're
aware of the school policies surrounding
mobile phone use. Make sure you're monitoring
their internet and mobile phone use and set
limits. And it's important to teach your child
how to change their behaviour. And if you're
modelling empathy and you're encouraging them
along the way, this will make it a lot easier.
KELLIE:
Now another thing-- I think it's related to
the topic of cyberbullying-- but I've being
reading a lot about trolling. And I really
don't know, what are some of the examples of
trolling behaviour?
CARA:
Trolls are generally anonymous to the person
who's on the receiving end.
GULSUM:
Trolling is basically when a user deliberately
writes awful things in an online public forum
just wanting to get a bit of a reaction and
rise out of others. So an example of these has
been in Queensland, a guy has gone onto the
Rest in Peace tribute page for a teenager and
has put some really nasty comments and photos
on this page. And this guy actually went to
court and received some jail time for his
behaviour.
KELLIE:
So if your child revealed to you that they
were getting these sorts of messages, as a
parent, what advice would you give to your
child?
CARA:
It's like a lot of things on the internet. As
hard as it is, it's actually important not to
respond to nasty and offensive comments.
You've got to take the power away by blocking
the troll and then also reporting them to the
site administrators.
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KELLIE:
There's also been some talk about some social
networking sites where people can anonymously
post questions and answers. And I've read
about kids being cyberbullied on these, so
why, again, are kids using these sorts of
sites?
GULSOME:
Well often, they're using them to ask overtly
sexual questions anonymously. But the reason
kids are really using sites like these are for
a bit of fun and to see what kind of replies
they'll get. Sometimes kids are actually
fishing for validation, asking questions like,
do you like my latest pic? Do I look fat in
this? And what they really want is a
respondent to say, no, you're perfect.
CARA:
Yeah, one of the things that I think is
important to discuss when you have
conversations with kids about these types of
websites, is, again, the real world test-would they change their behaviour if they knew
their real name would be associated with what
they're saying?
KELLIE:
I think with these conversations around
cyberbullying and trolling on these anonymous
sites, if you strip away all the technology
jargon, what we're really talking about is
respectful communication-- the same
expectations of being nice to one another that
we've always had. Treating others the way that
you would want to be treated.
GULSUM:
That's right. So whatever you do in the
offline world, just translate that into the
online world. Lots of food for thought there.
Thanks for listening. For more information on
these issues or for tips on how to start these
conversations with your children, visit the
Cybersmart website-- www.cybersmart.gov.au.
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