iPads x 3
I was visiting a private South Yarra primary school the other day. In fact, I was out there twice in the same week, delivering cyber-citizenship talks to different year groups. I was amazed at how much even the very young children know of the key safe-online messages.
But equally flummoxed by just how little empathy some of the older children in particular feel for others. I feel it’s this lack of empathy with others that leads directly to kids being mean to other children, not thinking about their actions and just how much they can hurt others. I just hope we can establish much greater empathy amongst our young – and it’s not going to happen without them being exposed to unsettling, authentic and (yes, I really believe this) even real danger. It certainly isn’t going to happen in front of a TV screen or listening to so-called experts spout on for an hour or so.
And oh, another surprising finding – one of the Year 5 children owned not one iPad but.. (wait for it).. 3!
How is this Updated?
My wife and I have sit with our kids each time a negative news article occurs to highlight how such things happen. The sit downs also include anything that’s in the media regarding other anti social behaviour. We like to ask them what they would do.
We encourage them to keep their information private and to beware the pitfalls of emails and social networks, particularly, once you send it’s now in the public arena even if you emailed 1 person. We ask them to ask their self before writing something; would they be happy to announce the same in front of the school assembly or be happy to see it on the nightly news?
Even though they are getting older, we also discuss the stranger danger, both online and daily life; that things can happen to people from 1-100 years of age and they must be cautious.
We don’t discourage them in any way from using technology but help them understand the good and not so good aspects for the new era of sharing.
We keep the computers and laptops in the common area of the house and we ask them, if they cannot view a web site or send something without someone possibly seeing, then they probably shouldn’t be doing it.
We also have an agreement with the children that we can review their ‘friends’ on social networks and their email contacts and what they are sending and also we set their privacy settings for social networks. We do not snoop on their emails or social networks interactions, we respect their privacy. We set age limits for ‘friends’.
So far everything is going well and the kids are starting to see the pros and con’s of the open/ sharing era.
We have been very open with them since early childhood about computers, sexuality, crimes against people etc. we don’t put them in panic mode but make them aware and continually reinforce to them about their private circle, physical and virtual.