Our children live in an increasingly digital world. They frequently interact with each other digitally out of school. As with all interactions between children, there is learning going on. Often that learning happens by the mistakes that we make. It seems easier to make mistakes where people's feelings get hurt in the digital world as you often don't see the hurt that your words or actions can cause in the same way that you do when seeing the other person face to face. Things we have dealt with at school have involved name-calling, threatening, setting up groups to deliberately exclude some people, creating fake social media pages in another child's name. When spoken to children often admit that they got caught up in the heat of the moment and didn't really think about how it might affect the other person. Most of this unkindness happens via social media sites and through gaming chats. Things that can be done at home to limit the impact this may have on your child are: - being aware of what they are doing online - where possible limiting their social media use - making sure they share you into their social media accounts - encouraging them to share anything that happens online that makes them upset or uncomfortable.  Screenshot anything you are unhappy with that is said to your child online. If you are unsure the best place to go for support about online issues is https://www.netsafe.org.nz/advice/parenting/.

At school, we have strong filtering of our internet.  There are quite a few sites that we have blocked because they are gaming and have little educational value.  Our filter stops all things related to pornography.  Whenever a student tries to access a site that they are not supposed to be on we get emailed.  Most of the time this is for harmless gaming sites and a quick chat with the student lets them know we are aware and that isn't what the internet is used for at school.  Occasionally children search for things that are less accidental and less appropriate. When children search for anything of a sexual nature they are spoken to and parents are alerted.  Our filtering also picks up anything that may relate to mental health and alerts us to any searches involving depression, suicide or anything related to these topics.  In these cases we contact families.  The internet is a wonderful resource for our children but like all other things we need to be aware of what they might be seeing or doing while on there.