Generation Web at Sacred Heart School

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.

Generation Web

On Tuesday night, I gave a presentation on young people and the internet at Hertford Heath School.
It was aimed at parents who may be aware that their children know more about the online world than they do, and attempted to offer some helpful hints about how to keep children safe.
I'm sure it raised as many questions as it answered, and this post is an invitation to use the comments as a way to keep the discussion going.
Briefly, while I raved about how great the internet is, I did point out four dangers that young people in particular face, not all of which are going to be at the forefront of their minds when they go online.
These are the four dangers, followed by my thoughts on how to help.
Privacy

It is possible to give away more than you should online, and to suffer the consequences. As an example, CEOP have produced a hard hitting video of the dangers of sexting.
What to do? I suggested that as parents we should:

• Make the effort to learn about privacy settings on sites like Facebook
• Encourage our children to use strong passwords, and different ones for each site. Change them often.
• Restrict the personal information you give out
• Never meet an online friend that you don't know in real life by yourself

Pornography

Porn is much more accessible now than ever. We can expect our youngsters to have found it, either accidentally or on purpose, by the time they are 11.
What to do?
Prepare your children. Explain to them from an early age that adults view porn as a "fantasy" and that real life sex isn't like that
With young children, make sure they know what to do if something comes up that they weren't expecting.
Don't let internet use becoime a secret. Find out how to check your browsing history, and check where your children have been on the internet. Play fair, show then your history too. Encourage openness.

Cyberbullying

Our children deserve a safe place where a bully can't get at them. If you allow tech in their bedrooms, then there's nowhere they can escape a cyberbully. My advice is seriously consider banning tech from bedrooms. That's what we do. It has the valuable side effect of encouraging reading - after all, who's going to want to read a book if they can play on the playstation? But, if the technology's downstairs, they'll read in bed.
We also have a no secrets policy. every once in a while, we all sit down, swap phones and read each others' texts. The aim is to create a mindset that mobiles aren't a secret place. They're open.
If your children are on Facebook, get on it yourself,. Insist that they friend you. Then you can check what's happening to them from time to time.
If you must have internet-enabled devices in your children's bedrooms (or can't face the outcry of removing them) why not have an open door policy? Find reasons to walk past their door, do the hoovering, put the socks away, whatever it takes, again so that it's not a private activity.
This isn't snooping, it's caring.

Grooming
Much of what I've said above applies here. Just keep it open. A paedophile is gong to cultivate secrecy while he is building a relationship with a child. Make your child a tough target and he'll move on somewhere else.

My final bit of advice was not to neglect building strong real life relationships. Young people will take refuge online if life is tough offline. Keep the rewards high in your family life, and their online life will be kept in balance.

The internet's great. Enjoy it.
But with your eyes open.

Thoughts, ideas, questions? Please use the comments!