Web Safety

An interesting time. Having children of about the same age as my students gives an added perspective to use of the Web. Today, a development in the sage of children and chat rooms (MSN etc). A few months ago, we were asked about MSN (again) and had to spend ssome time thinking through stategies for her to use this safely. After a variety of thoughts about how to do this, we decided to use a modification of the "protective behaviours" approach. Firstly, this talks about recognising your own reactions as a good guide to whether or not the situation needs greater care. Secondly, we asked her to contact a network of adults (5 people) who she would be comfortable to approach if she had a problem on line and to check with them in advance that they would be happy to assist.
It seems to me a good approach for a variety of reasons:

• It requires a certain degree of maturity to independantly approachn adults to check with them that they are happy to perform this role. I'm guessing that, if a young person is not game to do this then they are unlikely to feel that they can confide in an adult later.
• It provides a much bigger network than just parents who bring with them the fear that access to the internet will be restricted in response to a perceived threat.
• My daughters experience of this was a learning one - she found with some of the adults she contacted taht they had already had the expereience of cyber-bullying with their own family and were quite confident in responding. With other adults, we discovered that they needeed to go and do their homework to even realise that there were potentially harmful situations that could occur on line. This meant that they are now more aware and would potentially be more helpful in future.

It has taken my daughter a while to get in touch with these people and that has been educative also. it seems to be agood system, providing some dependable ongoing support. Of course parental monitoring and communication is in there too but it does broaden the safety net and use some of the adults in the village in raising our children.

I'm sure it is not a new use. Arer others aware of the litereature / resources whre this has been formaised. has it been initited from an educational setting?

Shalom

Bernie