What do we do when a group chat turns to mocking someone? 

Parenting Perspective 

When a group chat starts to turn mean, perhaps by mocking someone’s clothes, their grades, or their mistakes, children can often freeze. They may feel torn between not wanting to join in, and not wanting to look boring or to lose their friends. This is one of the hardest social tests that a young person can face, the choice of showing kindness at a time when the rest of the crowd is drifting towards cruelty. Teaching your child how to respond to these situations can help them to build their empathy, their moral courage, and a sense of inner leadership. 

Helping Them to Recognise the Hidden Dynamics 

It is helpful to start by guiding your child to recognise the signs of social exclusion. 

• Two or more children whispering or sending private messages while glancing at someone else. 

• Inside jokes that are deliberately designed to leave another person out. 

• Conversations that can make other people feel unwelcome or embarrassed. 

You can explain to your child that this uneasy feeling in their stomach is their conscience, which is reminding them that something is wrong. Listening to that feeling is what can make them different, in the best possible way. This can help your child to see that their own discomfort is not a weakness, but a sign of their moral awareness. 

Showing Them Practical Ways to Respond 

Your child does not always have to confront a group directly in order to do the right thing. You can guide them through three balanced and practical options. 

• Change the tone. They can try to steer the chat in a more gentle way by saying, ‘Let us not go there; that is a bit harsh,’ or ‘Come on, they would feel awful if they read that.’ 

• Step away quietly. If the chat becomes too negative, you can teach them that it is okay to leave the group or to mute the notifications for a while. Their silence in that moment can be a powerful statement of their own values. 

• Check in privately. You can encourage them to send a private message to the person who is being mocked at a later time: ‘Hey, I saw what was happening in the group chat, and it was not fair. Are you okay?’ 

This quiet act of compassion can often mean more to a person than any kind of public defence. 

Spiritual Insight 

Islam strongly condemns any form of mockery or humiliation. A believer’s tongue, or in this case, their keyboard, must never be allowed to become a source of pain for another person. Helping your child to respond wisely to any form of group cruelty can help them to connect with the prophetic values of mercy, of justice, and of self-restraint. 

The Quranic Command Against All Forms of Mockery 

Allah Almighty states in the noble Quran at Surah Al Hujuraat (49), Verse 11: 

‘Those of you who are believers, do not let a nation ridicule another nation, as perhaps it may be that they are better than them; and let not the women (ridicule) other women, as perhaps they may be better than them; and do not insult each other; and do not call each other by (offensive) nicknames…’ 

This verse speaks directly to the heart of the issues of digital bullying and of group mockery. It teaches us that no one ever has the right to belittle another person, and that a person’s true superiority in the sight of God is known only to Him. When your child is able to refuse to laugh at or to spread any form of unkindness, they are embodying this beautiful divine principle of protecting the dignity of others. 

The Prophetic Teaching on Honour and Compassion 

It is recorded in Sunan Abu Dawood, Hadith 4882, that the holy Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: 

‘It is enough evil for a man to despise his Muslim brother.’ 

This hadith reminds us as believers that even a silent sense of contempt for another person is a form of wrongdoing in the sight of Allah. When your child is able to choose to speak up against mockery, or to quietly walk away from it, they are rejecting that evil and are choosing a path of compassion over one of cruelty. 

When your child is able to learn how to respond to a moment of group mockery, they are learning far more than just a piece of digital etiquette; they are learning a form of moral leadership. They are coming to realise for themselves that an act of kindness in a crowd is a test of a person’s true strength, not of their social status. 

Your own calm guidance can help them to trust that being kind, even when it may be unpopular in the moment, is a quiet act of bravery that is deeply loved by Allah Almighty. In time, they will come to see that real confidence does not come from fitting in with the crowd, but from standing up, gently, wisely, and faithfully, for what they know is right. 

As they begin to act with a sense of mercy in the moments when other people are choosing to mock, they will be practising one of Islam’s most beautiful teachings: that a true believer is one who is able to protect the honour of others as carefully as they protect their own, in both their words and in their silence, both on the screen and off it.