How smart is a smart phone?

Smart phones are a new way that children can share messages, ideas and thoughts, they are also a way to create mean and unkind content and share it with the world.

I am very glad that such devices were not around in my day. That stumble caused by someone else’s foot, the instant reaction to a paper message passed through class, the embarrassment and pain caused by an idiot moving your chair away as you were about to sit down.

These are all things which can now be captured and replaying in real technicolour, to all who want to watch. I don’t know about you but I re-ran such events through my head enough times without having others encouraging/ forcing me to relive it for their amusement.

When my daughter was younger I found that others were making comments on her Instagram feed. Some were not very nice. I was able to raise the issue with the other child’s parents, and it stopped.

I was able to do this as the agreement was that I had access to her account. I was aware that she was as likely to be making comments as receiving them and wanted to encourage her not to.

You may feel this was a breach of her privacy, but in my day I would have to sit on the stairs to talk to friends. At least one side of the conversations could be overheard and my reactions read by my passing parents. This was a level of monitoring which was expected, and it did make a difference to some of the conversation.

You can only do what you are comfortable doing, but as a child who was called a bully when I was younger, I know that not all decisions children make are smart.  So if you are going to let you child have a smart phone, then you will have to be smart enough for both of you.

Do you monitor your child’s online activity?