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  • Trials and tribulations...

    Tuesday 17 August 2010

    Categories: Family Relationships, Media Influence, Parenting, Personal Safety

    You’ve got to sympathise with poor Nigel Smith, on at least two fronts. He wrote in Femail, Daily Mail last week about his current trials of raising his 8 year old daughter and he is a worried man.

    Firstly his own mother inadvertently signed up his daughter to an internet chatroom. It’s not as bad as it sounds – it’s an age-appropriate site which is peopled by cute monsters created by the children, and its main purpose is for playing games. But my antennae are twirling: granny’s reason for signing her granddaughter up to this site was that she thought her son “had been mean” when he refused to buy his daughter an iPod. So without any discussion this she gives her granddaughter access to an internet site. Undermining parental authority or what? And I do wonder whose idea it really was.

    So Issue1: agree that consistency between adults is essential; otherwise your child may grow up to be a charming but manipulative adult! Now Nigel has a real problem: he knows the potential risks associated with chatrooms to innocent and ignorant young girls. He has two reasonable but conflicting desires: he wants to preserve his child’s innocence (although I suspect she’s less innocent than doting daddy would care to know!) and to protect her from harm.

    Of course this is what raising and nurturing children is all about – balancing the twin but apparently opposing poles of equipping them with the knowledge and abilities they need to thrive and survive while yet keeping them safe. Actually we keep them safe precisely by giving them the necessary information and skills so they can make their own judgements, assess risks, and then act accordingly. And they will make mistakes, as we did, and learn from them.

    So Issue 2: educate and discuss, share and listen. Just as ignorance is no defence in law it is no defence against the real world.

    Nigel can talk to Scarlett about what a “friend” is, and is not, about the difference between true, physical friends and online friends and about the possibility of the latter not being what they say they are. This doesn’t need to be detailed or scary but the more we talk with (not “at”) our children the less likely they are to engage in risky behaviour. And he should read up on internet safety for children of different ages and even occasionally monitor her online activity having agreed clear rules on internet use with her. This is not “snooping” it is acting as a responsible parent.

    Hang in there Nigel…just wait till she hits puberty!

    Posted by Alison Morris

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