GEM 4 From Fear to Facebook

Chapter 4 Kids Online: Lying as the New School Norm?

            There is an interesting debate going on in this between whether or not kids should be lying on the Internet.  On one hand, kids need to protect themselves from things like online predators.  But on the other hand, it seems that we might be encouraging kids to lie not only on the computer but it carries over to what they are telling their parents.   This is a tricky situation because first and for most you want to make the kids are safe when they are online, but if this is translated to kids lying about what is going on when they are online to their parents then is that worth it?

            One way to handle this is to have some classes that will teach and help reinforce ways to stay safe online and how to handle different situations.  The school in the book had something called Ethical Decision Making classes where they taught kids why and how to protect themselves online but they also gave so different scenarios so the kids could brainstorm together negative and positive ways to handle the situation.  These classes will hopefully teach kids the importance of protecting themselves when they are online and to know that part of protecting yourself involves telling your parents about the things going on when you are on the Internet.