Shock mistake Aussie parents are making

A “concerning” number of mums and dads are forgetting, or are not properly listening, when their child tells them they’ve been treated in a hurtful or nasty way online – and are even ignoring their own kid fessing up to cyberbullying someone.

A major new report commissioned by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner also shows an increase in young people communicating with strangers they’ve first met through social media, with one-in-eight sending that person a photo of themselves weekly or even catching up in real life.

Meanwhile, 71 per cent of 14 to 17-year-olds say they’ve seen sexual images online, while nearly half of that age group admit to receiving a sexual message from someone within the last 12 months.

The Mind the Gap report – released on Safer Internet Day – interviewed more than 3500 young people aged eight to 17 and their parents between August and September 2021.

The report found that 45 per cent of young people had been treated in a nasty or hurtful way online in the past year.

But, positively, of that number, 93 per cent did something about it, including two-thirds who told their parents.

“We’ve seen a huge spike in young people seeking help from a trusted adult. We’ve seen about a 20 per cent increase from 2017,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

However, despite kids opening up, there was a major gap in parents registering that crucial information about the nasty treatment, which often occurs via a direct message rather than publicly.

“What’s a little bit concerning here is that nearly 70 per cent of kids told their parents but only 51 per cent of their parents really remembered the conversation or that it registered with them that this had happened or had a significant impact on them,” Ms Inman Grant said.

The same issue was uncovered with perpetrators of online abuse.

A quarter of young people admitted to cyberbullying someone in the previous 12 months.

Of that number two-thirds owned up to their parents that they’d done it.

Yet only one third of parents surveyed reported being aware of their son or daughter’s actions.

“The gap … suggests that parents might ignore, forget or dismiss their child’s confession – or perhaps find it difficult to acknowledge that their child has acted in these negative ways,” the report said.

More than half of children also reported talking to strangers online – a big increase from 2016 when it was just 22 per cent.

Yet only a third – or 34 per cent – of parents were aware that this potentially risky communication had taken place.

“This particular data is really about young people who maybe meet friends of friends through Instagram,” Ms Inman Grant said.

The survey found that nearly half of these strangers had a mutual friend or relative with the young person, while 37 per cent were aged under 18, and 25 per cent were adults.

“A little bit more alarmingly is that 12 per cent of them are actually meeting these people face-to-face after getting to know these people online without really knowing them,” Ms Inman Grant said.

But she said it was reassuring that the majority of parents were told this meeting was taking place.

Nearly half of parents of teens who had been exposed to sexual images didn’t know it had taken place, the report also showed.

Furthermore, almost 50 per cent of teens said they had received a sexual message from someone, yet only 16 per cent of parents knew this had taken place.

Contrastingly, most parents were aware when their teen had been asked to send a sexual message.

A whopping 62 per cent of teenagers also said they’d been exposed to harmful content like suicide, self-harm, unhealthy eating or drug-taking content online.

Yet just 43 per cent of parents knew this had occurred.

“You can see that parental awareness is quite low, so you might say parents are quite naive about what their children are getting up to online or what they are exposed to,” Ms Inman Grant said.

But she said the internet played an important and positive role in many ways and a balance had to be struck in restricting access.

“Young people are using the internet for really important personal, sexual and mental health information, and with any provisions that look at age verification and parental consent, we want to make sure young people are able to use the internet to explore their identities,” she said.

KEY STATISTICS

• 69 per cent of children who had been treated in a hurtful or nasty way online told their parents, yet only 51 per cent of these parents said they were aware.

• 65 per cent of children who had treated someone negatively online reported telling their parents, yet only 34 per cent reported being aware.

• More than 60 per cent of 14 to 17-year-olds were exposed to some form of harmful content, like suicide, self-harm, drug taking or unhealthy eating in the past year, yet just 43 per cent of parents were aware.

• Seven in 10 teenagers have seen a sexual image on the internet, yet only 34 per cent of parents realised this.

• 55 per cent of children have been in contact with someone they first met online, yet only 34 per cent of parents knew this.