internet safety

[taimatsu]

I've watched the news quite a bit over the last few days, and have been following the story of Shevaun Pennington's disappearance and now reappearance. There are a lot of short pieces about internet safety for children and meeting people in chatrooms and things.

It strikes me as quite a dfficult task to ensure the safety of your child. Many teenagers *want* to explore areas of the web their parents might disapprove of - messageboards and chat areas touching on dating and sexual topics (there are plenty of those aimed at teenagers, in a perfectly above-board problem-page kind of way), for example. So you can't assume your child is going to stay in safe waters.

The one thing these TV pieces never seem to say is *learn how to use your software*. Learn what message programs, chat programs, or online java-type chat systems your child is using. Set up passwords so they can't install new software, if you can. Learn how these programs block contacts, or log messages. If the parent understands how the system works they can help the child use it to their advantage.

The only other thing you can do is convince your child that if someone makes approaches to them they find alarming or strange, they can come to you to talk about it, or use a blocking feature on the program. If they talk to someone regularly and they want to meet up face-to-face, you will be very happy to come with them.

It all suffers from the teenage independence thing - 'I know what I'm doing, I can manage for myself, I understand this stuff much better than mum and dad, I can do it myself.' It's very difficult to get over that and have the chid willing to come to the parents for advice or help.

Comments

[booklectica]

Though from what I read, it was actually the girl who lied to the man, not the other way round? She told him she was 19 and he believed her. So she wasn't being led astray or abducted or anything, really - he was.

[purrthecat.livejournal.com]

Child pornography has been found on his computer and the police found logs that suggest he did have a serious clue that she wasn't 19 and was in fact much younger.

*shrugs* I'm just pleased she's home and safe. This is a happy ending compared to other alternative outcomes.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

My god, they really do spell it Shevaun. Is that usual these days? I still usually write siobhan, but then again I usually write gaol. My spelling's mad enough that to learn one spelling is a pain! More "phonetic spellings would be better if they actually were phonetic, but trying to map Irish madness onto English madness just leaves me confused. S@vO:n wouldn't be too popular, though, I guess.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

(snobbery alert)

It's probably quite prevalent in the area she's from (Wigan) because the parents wouldn't be able to spell something as complicated as Siobhan.

(/snobbery)

Makes my teeth grind every time I see it on newspaper hoardings though.

(i said /snobbery dammit)

Perhaps its just part of the lingo evolving and we're going to have to get used to it. Sigh.

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

It's only because I know you're right that I'm letting you get away with that! "Shevaun", sadly, gratingly, enragingly, I have heard used before. I'm surprised it isn't a "valid" alternate spelling yet. Anyone got a baby-names book they can check???

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, and it doesn't appear, but Google shows up a LOT of people with this spelling. Argh. They ought to make people take some kind of test before allowing them to name a child.

Obviously this is on my mind quite a lot lately - I've read of children called Toffee (!), Jadenia, girls called Cameron, boys and girls called Camden (I suggested Putney for a second child...), and much worse since I've been hanging out on parenting/pregnancy groups. It's a scary scary world.

[taimatsu]

So smallclanger won't be called Brydenn, or Shyann, or J'Nette, or Raeleigh? :)l

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Heh, it's tempting innit?

Our standard answer to those who ask has been Colin Oliver (think about it, with our surname...). Which could be Colleen Olivia for a girl, I suppose. But no, we are going for some nice sensible easy-to-pronounce easy-to-spell classic names. I couldn't live with myself otherwise.

Have you seen this (http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html) baby name site? Hours of fun.

[taimatsu]

Hmm :)

Yes, I have seen it - it's great :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The funniest thing about those suggested names was that it actually took me some time after coming up with them to also notice what the initials spelled! Once I noticed I liked them even more. :-) It was the Colly-Olly potential that really appealed to my sense of devilment...

(Friends of mine who are SAG and LAG (originally LAP) are currently taking this into account when devising their baby names - their standard answers to those who ask are currently Pamela Imogen and Stephen Henry Andrew.)

[taimatsu]

Watch it, my mother's hometown is Leigh! All my family come from near Wigan :)ú

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

And my mother's is Chorley. Like I said, I'd be very angry with softfruit if I didn't know first hand that (s)he spoke the truth...

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

To me the best thing you can try to do is bring your kids up with common sense, a strong sense of belonging and being supported by their family and the confidence to make sane choices about who they socialise with in the first place.

[taimatsu]

I sounds like these parents thought they'd done that. It's probably quite hard to tell, sometimes. 

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

It's also just playing into the whole "society cannot allow children to experiment or experience anything" crap. Since time immemorial some proportion of 12 year olds have run away. Nowadays it can only mean they will be damaged, suffer sexual abuse (there being of course no other kind) etc. Just let them get on with it for pity's sake.