Bullies’ abuse a Snapchat away
“EVERY parent’s worst nightmare” is a phrase that is overused.
But the terrible story of 14-year-old Sam Abel really is just that. Sam was bullied day and night via Snapchat and Facebook before one day it became too much.
His parents, friends and teachers were all unable to hold back the tsunami of social media bile which engulfed him.
His every moment was lived against the soundtrack of abuse pinging on his smartphone.
Until, one day, the nothingness of death seemed preferable to the awfulness of life. And then Sam went to a supermarket car park near his home in Worcester and killed himself.
Yesterday his dad Mark, a former soldier, said: “They broke him down in the end. Snapchat messages only last seconds but when you’re getting messages constantly, seconds add up.”
Sam was barely a year older than my eldest son. It’s that age where kids crave independence and it’s healthy and right they have a private world and some secrets away from Mum’s wellmeaning but frankly irritating interference.
But in so many ways these early teenagers are still just babies too, as excited and befuddled by the world as they were as toddlers.
One minute my son will be grunting at me, furious that I’m questioning him again at what he’s looking at on his phone. The next he’s asking for a chocolate milkshake in bed. Which makes it harder for us parents than ever. We still need to protect them as much as we ever have done, while giving them space to grow.
And how do we know when the moody silences and hours spent locked in their bedroom is run of the mill teenage stroppiness or actually something far more worrying?
And even when parents like Sam’s discover something is wrong – how do we go about taking on what seems like the unstoppable might of social media?
Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook and all those social media sites have taken bullying to a whole new level. Snapchat also destroys messages immediately so they can never be see by teachers or police.
Dozens of people, some of whom may never even have met their victim, can join in with abuse online.
And with the coward’s cloak of anonymity, the bile can be a million times worse than anything the bullies would ever dare to say in the flesh.
Being further away from a victim also means their target can be easily dehumanised – a virtual victim so that the bullies literally don’t care what they say.
But while the ferocity and quantity of bullying has increased exponentially on social media – the way to deal with it remains the same as ever… a scorched earth policy of total terror aimed at the bully and total love and support towards the picked upon.
Schools that have been successful in stamping it out have done so by imposing rigorous discipline and plenty of honest, open conversations about how cyber bullying can happen, and how it should be reported.
For parents, I guess the best we can do is keep talking to our kids, keep offering them fun away from their smartphones and make sure they know they can trust us with any secret.
And maybe too we need to tell them about teenagers like Sam, whose entire life was lost to the cyber bullies.
Then make them a chocolate milkshake and hope, for a little while longer at least, that we can keep them safe.
Dozens of people who have not met their victim join in