Empowering Youth: Tackling Digital Coercive Control with Confidence and Awareness

My previous newsletters have been focused on how education can prevent the likelihood of coercive control and having a coercive control curriculum within secondary education can help a school to support its young people. This newsletter looks at how young people can be supported within education and within the home when dealing with issues of social media, digital coercive control (DCC) /Technology facilitated coercive control (TFCC).

Whilst we can all appreciate how beneficial social media and technology have become in so many different areas of the human condition, what has spiralled out of control is how perpetrators use social media and DCC/TFCC to abuse.

Unfortunately, young people have been and continue to be the subjected to this type of abuse which can cause major issues and concerns, having devastating impacts on their emotional, psychological and physical well-being. Internet Matters report that 77% of girls between the ages of 13-16 in the UK report digital experiences that are or may be harmful, which include online harassment and inappropriate images. This can have damaging consequences such as suicidal ideation, self-harm and suicide, which both young females and young males are experiencing not just here in the UK but globally. Whilst there is always a challenge of how we, as adults, can help and support young people, I wanted to share two ways that MAY help young people when faced with this type of online abuse.??

1. A Young Person’s Self-Confidence. It is important to note, that while many believe that this is not the answer to dealing with aspects surrounding the dangers of social media, I would like to offer an alternative perspective. Social media is a massive part of our people’s lives, it will always be ‘ever present’ so a positive thing would be to help them build their confidence, self-worth and how they value themselves. So when confronted with abuse in this way, they are able to view themselves much differently from the negative narrative that maybe circulated. Cultivating a more resilient self in the face of this type of abuse.??

How can this be achieved?

• Praising the young person, especially when it’s something really small. Always keeping an eye out for a kind gesture or a small act of help or support that they offered to someone. Notice and praise them for it.?
• Focusing on what they do right as opposed to what they are doing wrong.
• Spending as little as 15-20 minutes doing something that they like doing.
• Invite them to do something, even if they refuse, they will remember you did. These things can all help young people to feel valued, and have an impact on how they feel about themselves. Cultivating this confidence, the hope is that young people can become less reliant on those who use social media to challenge their worth. This maybe trickier within education but tutor time as a group could be an alternative. Their worth at home and school should be different and separate from the online world. let’s make it obvious to them.?

2. A Young Person who knows what they can Control and Cannot Control. This may seem obvious but many young people do believe that when this type of abuse occurs that is it something to do them, either the way they look, the way they behaviour, what they have done wrong, etc. But sometimes the truth is, it may not be any of those things. Perpetrators of online abuse act on the premise of power and control, to humiliate, isolate and to hold victims in a state of fear that renders them powerless. Often times, it has nothing to do with the person that is being targeted, so helping young people to understand that when someone decides to do this, there isn’t anything they can do, and that there isn’t anything that they should change about themselves. I am not saying that this will take away the pain or the emotional and psychological distress that the young person may experience, but by teaching and helping them to understand what they can and cannot control will help them to focus their energy on building their confidence and controlling only themselves.?

How can this be achieved?

Things they can control.

• Their boundaries?
• How they talk about themselves to others??
• What they say to themselves
• What they give their energy to. (This list is not exhaustive)

Things they cannot control

• What others decide to do to them
• The past and the Future. (We only have now)
• What other people think. (This list is not exhaustive)

Providing young people with these mind-set shifts may allow them to stand a better chance of dealing with this type of abuse.?

In the Spotlight

Beyond grateful to have been been a part of this amazing book with 261 other amazing human beings!!

Thank you @debdrummond :)

Remember, together we build a culture of respect and equality.

I will leave you with my message: -?

Make choices and decisions that will create peace in your heart.

Much love Lis ??