Toxic teens: The conversations you need to have with your children

″We expect our primary aged kids to follow family rules, but teenagers increasingly become responsible for their own behaviour,” she said. “This means having good conversations to help them become empowered about their technology use.”

Brewer said humans behave differently in groups and technology facilitates communication that is less inhibited, because of the lack of eye contact, the sense of anonymity, and the removal from reality.

She said the question of what technology boundaries should be in place depended on the young person’s capacity – such as their impulsivity and self esteem – but parents also needed to be able to hold tough conversations, model effective communication and demonstrate their own healthy tech-use habits.

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Brewer suggested parents could use a similar approach to a driver’s licence system, where there is a clear progression from back-seat driver to learners to red provisional, then green provisional to full licence, and ways to remove privileges if the rules are not followed.

When parents discover their children are involved in this behaviour, both experts said it was best to be transparent and open with the school, which would have established procedures.

Brewer added that the eSafety office had best-practice toolkits for how to respond, while sometimes the child, whether victim or perpetrator, might need a psychologist to help them deal with the fallout.

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