Earlier this week I had the chance to have a conversation with our senior students relating to their digital footprint. I was surprised by the number of children who admitted that they were subscribers to FaceBook, Snapchat, Twitter and Tik Tok, and also that these apps were on their personal devices or phones. It made me wonder if parents are aware of what their children are doing on social media, and if parents are aware of the risks and dangers associated with their children being subscribed to these apps.

There are several concerns with Primary age students having these types of social media apps. The first concern is children need to be 13 years of age to hold an account, so if they have signed up to these whilst underage they are technically breaking the law. The second and far greater concern, is that these social media apps are often used by unknown and undesirable adults to contact, groom and possibly track and meet students. My question to all parents of children who are using these social media apps is, do you monitor who your child/ren are communicating with? If you don’t, it’s imperative that you do.

Over the next two newsletters I will be inserting parent fact sheets for these social media apps. I would ask all parents of students who have, and use these social media apps, to read them carefully with you children, to make sure you are all are aware of the risks and dangers associate with using these apps.