Do you watch Hollyoaks? Nope, me neither.
However I do have online age children and they are dealing with issues of cyberbullying.
They’re doing it for Anti-Bullying Week which has become so important it has been extended to Anti-Bullying Month.
Two Hollyoaks actors, Jimmy McKenna and Jazmine Franks have done a video that neatly illustrates the gulf between parents and their kids when it comes to what they do with a computer/phone/otherinternetthingy.
While Jimmy thinks that you should just switch off the internet if you don’t like what’s happening there, it’s obvious that solution simply doesn’t work for most of us.
I much prefer Jazmine’s notion that we need to discuss what’s happening – more often and in more places.
She strikes a real true note for me when she says that at 13 she used to close down her screen when her dad came into the room – my 13 year old has just started doing this very thing.
To this end – there’s lots of info on the CEOPS site and on Channel 4’s Hollyoaks site. You can see the events unfold on DocYou 24/7
But I think the most important thing is to let your children know that the internet isn’t some shiny world that crusty-old parents don’t have a clue about. We might not have the exact answers, but we know where to look and we can help.
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1
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