Been a while what with summer an all, but hopefully get back to putting my thoughts to (virtual) paper
So where has my thinking been going? Well it occurred to me, during a discussion with my other half, that my two boys 18 and 15 and my 3 year old all have one thing in common, they have never been taught properly about how to stay safe online. To be honest my 3 year old is a bit young but you hopefully you see where I'm going. My two lads have been given some advice at school but it's pretty awful and only skims the surface of what is required.
We tend to skirt around areas that we don't really understand and having had some discussions with teachers, they really do not understand this stuff at all. So do I want to do? Well it's probably a bit late for my two eldest but my youngest I want to make sure I educate her in all of this, not only so she understands the pitfalls but to give her strategies about how to deal with it, the genie is out, you can't put it back, but you can understand how the genie thinks, how they operate, what they want and have weapons in your armoury to deal with it.
I want my daughter to be a Digital Ninja, equipped to understand the technology and what it means but also how to deal with issues in a positive manner, who to talk to if something happens, how to deal with bullies. It's now time for the education system to catch up and start to teach our children how to behave and how to cope, with strategies for both. God forbid what happened to my youngest boy should happen to my daughter or anyone else's child but that really does mean parental responsibility and also school responsibility with classes that 'teach' this subject and not just pay lip service with maybe a one hour dull lecture every 6 months.
Parents, educate yourselves, don't leave it to someone else. Get the information on social networks, not just facebook or twitter but the myriad of other services available, ask.fm, snapchat, whatsapp, tumblr, instagram. there are also ones you have probably never heard of and they keep appearing, wanelo, kik, oovoo, yik yak, omegla, yo, whisper
My next blog will be about these sites, what they are and if they are safe.
Comments welcome
