Last night at Sacred Heart school in Ware, I learned a few new things.
One thing was a game that is new to me, called Moshi Monsters. Fairly innocent stuff, all about caring for your very own monster. The problem is, if you don't look after your monster, it will die, and if you're away from your computer for more than a day, you're in trouble. This leads to children sharing their passwords with each other so that they can look after each other's monsters, and then getting upset when someone misuses their account.
It seems like a gentle children's introduction to all that's bad in social networking - inappropriate sharing, online bullying, pressure to spend money to keep up with your friends ... or maybe the parents were only telling me the bad bits!
Last night, it seemed that the old advice was the best - spend real time with your children, do what you can to ensure that they have a rich relationship with you in the real world, then they won't be so keen to find fulfilment in the online world.
There is no substitute for the costly sacrifice of spending time with your children.
Sorry parents - the internet brings no shortcuts and saves no time in the business of bringing up children and, above all - it is a bad babysitter.
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