We can help prevent harmful beliefs from taking hold

Sarahs Story Part 1 - Transcript

James experienced bullying from a really young age. Started in kindergarten. He'd had a really rough time at school, spending a lot of time in the wellbeing unit, kind of by himself. School just didn't feel like a safe place for him. He was angry that life was in such a bad place. He was pretty isolated.

Back when behaviours were escalating and things were getting really out of control, getting calls from the school to come and collect him, being suspended, it was really hard with work and just trying to juggle life as a single parent.

Before authorities got involved I knew that James was in a lot of group accounts with other kids at school. To start with, I think it was just a lot of different kids coming together and chatting and getting to know each other.

I think some of the content might have got a little bit out of hand. I'm not super tech savvy, so sort of knowing even what some of the apps were, probably was a downfall for me.

I'd gotten calls from the school, to say that there was fake accounts and which kids were being involved in that. And James was a pretty big target, he was one of those kids that, was quite loud and maybe didn't understand control as much as other kids would have.

He often looked like a naughty kid. It got really bad. He would often spend a lot of time on his own just because it just all got too much.

And that bullying went from school to online and then in public places and was a lot.

When I look back, spending a lot more time, you know, on his phone, on his iPad, in his room. Engaging less, with the family and then, noticeably upset. Boys are hard to get things out of. Yeah, I was concerned about James.

We'd gone from this lovely little primary school where everything felt so protected, to the big, wide world of the unknown. Your first child going to high school, navigating what it's like to be a teenager. Hormones, mixing with lots of other kids and just not knowing what the dangers were.

And then, when you start finding out and sort of start to think, wow, have I been paying attention?

Knowing what I know now in terms of online risks, I would probably, try and monitor things a little bit better.

When James was a kid he was really advanced in everything from walking to talking to reading, he just knew a lot of facts about lots of things, like animals and countries and history. He was just really curious.

He would become really hyper focused on topics that interested him. And then I think as he got older, it probably developed into sort of interest in more controversial topics. Politics, and now I think it's really easy to get absorbed online with those kinds of things.

Just not really understanding boundaries and consequences. Kids just don't really have the capacity to consciously realise, you know, that they're going down that rabbit hole.

They all start talking about the same thing. They all start researching the same thing, they don't know what they're getting themselves into. They don't know that what they're talking about or or what they're engaging in, is something they perhaps shouldn't be.

It is really important, for parents to know that, some of these things can be taken really seriously. Whether there's intent or not.

Kids can be monitored and they don't realise it, and definitely parents don't realise it either.

esp@dcj.nsw.gov.au  

End of transcript.