Internet Safety in Schools

Recently my 5 th grade daughter has been coming home stating that she needs to do research on the internet for class assignments. I would like to think that with all that happens over the internet in today’s society the teachers assigning these projects would at least send a letter home stating that the students are required to do this research. I as a parent have no issues with her gaining abundant knowledge from the internet, I will gladly supervise her while she is on the internet but not all parents can, do or will. Her father for instance allows her free reign, I know this is my problem to deal with and I will, but I think before throwing a child into the internet world some information and precautions should be taken. She has had her own computer since she was 4 but she does not have the internet connected to it because I don’t want her to have full access unless I’m there to more or less supervise.

I have explained to her that the internet is not completely safe, that there are sick people out there and while she may be doing something harmless like working on school work but depending on her search terms depends on what will appear in the results. At the age of 10 she is too young to fully understand how sick some people are and being her mom I cannot be right. I even told her about William Hebbe, he was recently in the news, he went to Riverview School, and he’s been soliciting young girls since 2004, the latest reported being 12 years old, the courts have over 1,400 pages of chat transcripts from 2004-2008. That’s just sick and wrong and going to school with Will for over 10 years I would never have expected it out of him, he’s married with two young boys, who would have thought.

Do you realize that 20% of children 10-17 have been solicited sexually online, that’s 1 in 5 kids. 75% of these kids don’t tell a parent.

I think if the teachers are going to require them to do online research in elementary school they should be required to talk with them how the internet is not always a safe place and that they need to be careful. If they are not prepared to do this then they shouldn’t be assigning projects that require online research. Maybe the schools need to start an internet safety class in the 3 rd or 4 th grade to get these kids ready to be online. But the least they can do is send something home to the parents stating the requirement of online researching, then we can prepare for the “some people are sick” conversation and talk with our kids about it.