Parents' guide

My child is being bullied on WhatsApp — what to do tonight

If you've just found out, take a breath. Your child told you — or you noticed — and that means the worst part, the silence, is already over. Here is a calm order of steps for tonight and the days after.

First: if a child is at immediate risk

If anything you have seen makes you worried about your child's immediate safety — threats, talk of self-harm, or your instinct simply says so — do not triage the app tonight. Call 999 in an emergency. Children can talk to Childline free on 0800 1111 at any hour, and adults can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 for advice. None of the steps below matter more than this one.

Tonight, in order

1. Thank them for telling you. Out loud, before anything else. The message a bullied child most needs is: you did the right thing, you are not in trouble, and this is now our problem, not just yours. The biggest mistake a parent can make tonight is confiscating the phone — to a child, that reads as punishment for speaking up, and it teaches them to hide the next thing.

2. Keep the evidence before anyone deletes it. Screenshot the messages, including names, dates and times. In WhatsApp you can also export a whole chat (open the chat → tap the name → Export Chat). Bullies delete for everyone; schools and, if it comes to it, police need to see what was actually said.

3. Block — and in group chats, leave. Open the contact and choose Block and report. If it's a group, report the messages, then leave the group; your child owes nobody an exit speech. Reporting sends the recent messages to WhatsApp itself, which can act against the account.

4. Don't reply, and don't message the bully's parents in anger tonight. Replies feed it and muddy the evidence. If the children are at the same school, the school is the right channel — it is calmer and it works.

This week

Tell the school even though it happened online. UK schools have anti-bullying duties that cover behaviour between pupils outside the gates when it affects life inside them. Email the form tutor or head of year, attach the screenshots, and ask what happens next. Putting it in writing matters.

Report serious content beyond the app. Threats of violence are a police matter — report on 101, or 999 if urgent. If sexual images of a child are involved, do not delete anything, do not forward anything, and report to CEOP (the National Crime Agency's child protection command) — and if an intimate image of your child is circulating, the Report Remove tool run by Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation can get it taken down.

Rebalance the phone, gently. Quieter evenings help a hurt child sleep: a bedtime pause on group chats, mornings without the pile-on waiting. This is where limits are care, not punishment — set together, explained, and never framed as "because of what happened to you". Our guide to phones at bedtime has a script for that conversation.

Where Safeinest honestly fits — and where it doesn't

Being straight with you: on an iPhone, no app can read WhatsApp messages — not ours, not anyone's, and companies claiming otherwise are selling something that cannot work. What Safeinest gives a family in this situation is different: bedtime and school-hours pauses so the bullying cannot follow your child into the night, a Block now button for the evenings when it all needs to stop, and a family chat, call and SOS line that stay open even while other apps are paused — so stepping back from WhatsApp never means being cut off from you.

The long game

Most WhatsApp bullying burns out once it's exposed, blocked and named to the school. Keep the evidence folder, keep the check-ins going («anything today?» at dinner, lightly), and watch for the quiet signs — a child suddenly "fine" who won't touch their phone is not always fine. And if it keeps going, escalate without guilt: school again, in writing; then the police. Persistence is not overreacting. It's parenting.