HAMBURG, N.Y. \u2014 It\u2019s estimated that one in five students between 12 and 18 will experience bullying at school. With many schools now in summer break, students could be spending more time on their phones.<\/p>\n
That’s something Deanna Gresko is warning against.<\/p>\n
Her daughter, Nadiya Santiago, was a shining light in Gresko\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was an 11-year-old. Typical happy kid,” she said. “She liked her friends. She did good in school. She loved her sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nadiya’s mother had recently gotten her a phone for good grades.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, ‘I accidentally posted a video on TikTok, and I’m embarrassed,’ ” Gresko recalled. “It was a cute little \u2014 I don’t know \u2014 you do them little dances, you know? It was super cute. She looks super cute in it. And I go, ‘there’s nothing wrong with it.’ She goes, ‘Mom, I’m embarrassed.’ She’s like, ‘can I stay home tomorrow?’ And I’m like, ‘yeah.’ \u201d<\/p>\n
That next day, Gresko left Nadiya at home alone while she picked up her other kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave her a hug and a kiss, and I said, ‘I love you,’ ” recalled Gresko. “That was the last time I saw her.”<\/p>\n
Nadiya died by suicide. Gresko says there were no signs she was going through a hard time, apart from what happened with the video.<\/p>\n
She says it\u2019s something parents need to keep an eye out for.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really need to monitor what they’re doing, because this could be you sitting here telling you your story about your child,” she said. “It’s not worth it for a phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
During summer vacation, students are away from potential in-person bullies. Cyber-bullying can persist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be really hard because things can spread really fast online,” explained Stephanie Fredrick, the associate director for the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention. “Things can be shared and liked and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Frederick notes that because cyberbullying usually reflects in-person bullying, it can slow in summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of those social gatherings, the football games, all of that, that’s not happening,” she said. “Also during the summer, I think there’s greater choice for young people on who they spend their time with […] and that’s really powerful for peers, and a really big protective factor actually against bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recommends parents watch out for uncharacteristic behaviors that last more than a week or two and have open dialogues with kids about what they\u2019re doing online.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs opposed to like, ‘why do you spend all that time on your phone? It’s rotting your brain.’ You know, we don’t want to have kind of that disapproving attitude, but instead asking questions, [and] co-using devices with our kids,” Frederick said.<\/p>\n
But, there aren\u2019t always signs someone\u2019s in crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are things people wrote about her,\u201d said Gresko, opening a box of consolation notes from Nadiya’s schoolmates.<\/p>\n
For Nadiya\u2019s family, it\u2019s a hole that won\u2019t ever be filled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the worst pain that a mother or father or sibling could ever feel,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes parents emphasize more time away from the screen and always provide that safe space.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have so many children reaching out to me saying that they’re in the same predicament as Nadiya and nobody will listen to them,” she said. “We need to give them hope, and we need to just let them know there’s people out there that will that will help them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMBURG, N.Y. \u2014 It\u2019s estimated that one in five students between 12 and 18 will experience bullying at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2952,113,2953,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,33018],"class_list":["post-283481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-health","tag-buffalo","tag-health","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-viktoria-hallikaar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}