Talking to your child about sexual harassment
Harassment is harmful behaviour that has unfortunately become a part of many children’s everyday lives.
It’s happening both online and offline through peer-to-peer behaviour such as:
- Sexualised comments or bullying
- Sharing or leaking of nude images
- Sharing someone’s sexual history or orientation without their consent
- Upskirting
- Sending or showing someone explicit content that they didn’t ask to see, such as pornography or ‘cyberflashing’.
Talking with children about these issues can be difficult, not only due to the nature of the conversations, but because of the rapid rate at which technology is developing. This can make it hard to keep track of your child’s online activity and the social media platforms on which some of these problems exist.
Parents may also be surprised at the young age at which some children are exposed to harassment or explicit content.
To support parents in talking to their children about these topics at a time that is right for them, the children’s commissioner has put together this PDF with the thoughts of 16-21 year olds about how parents should speak to and support their children when it comes to sexual harassment.
Click here or on the image below to view the guide.
