As part of GroupTogether’s initiative to showcase the best apps to help you organise your life, we bring you reword.it.

“Once an insult is read, the damage is done.” – Headspace 2015

How’s this for a scary statistic? Over 450,000 Australian children were victims of cyber bullying in 2015 (The National Children’s and Youth Law Centre) and 78% of young people bullied online are between 10-15 years old (The Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW). As part of GroupTogether’s initiative to showcase the best apps to help you organise your life, we want to share with you a must have anti-bullying app, reword.it.

Is it surprising? Sadly, no. The rise of social media and it’s lack of face-to-face communication has unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse, that is breathtaking in its reach. There are so many Donald Trumps in cyberspace: forever complaining, endlessly ridiculing and constantly offering judgments. But the really sad part is that this type of bullying attracts as many imitators as it does detractors.

And if we think of the old adage, Monkey See, Monkey Do, then what do we figure our kids are learning from online “adult” behaviour?  Sadly, they are absorbing the way of the bully.  Of course, we parents do our best to teach our kids not to bully and reinforce and reward good behaviour, but let’s face it, kids are impulsive and often times unthinking. We can’t police them 24/7, so wouldn’t it be lovely to have a tool that acts as a circuit breaker for them, when we’re not around?

Enter reword, a technology developed by Leo Burnett Melbourne, in partnership with Headspace.  Reword is a new tool that gives kids a chance to rethink what they’ve typed before they post it.  In their own words, “What makes reword so unique is the red line. Similar to a spell checker, the line intuitively goes through insulting statements, interrupting impulsive behaviour and prompting you to reconsider your words before you post.”  Amazing!

Reword has found that almost 80% of young users are willing to reword when they see the red line. Kids can also help reword identify and classify new bullying words and phrases. I can’t encourage you enough to learn more, watch the stories and download this free tool for your kids at http://www.reword.it.

If you have an app that has helped you, let us know. We’d love to hear from you!