Navigating the digital world with your child

Introduction

Author Douglas Adams wrote these words in 1999 at the dawn of the internet era in response to perceived worries and concern about the internet:

“I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of the television, the phone, radio, cinema, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.

Anything that gets invented between then and before you can turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.

Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things”.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are… You would not open your front door and send your child out into the world, stating, “off you go; you can go wherever you like, with whomever you like, be out as long as you like, and you don't need to tell me where you have been, who you have been with, or what you have been doing”. But many of us are doing just that when we give our children access to phones and devices. Your child at this point holds the world in their hands and we can seem not to care. Pupils tell us, ‘my parents don’t have a clue what I do online.’ You need to, and the fact that you are reading this guide is a really positive step in the right direction. Our Digital Resilience Committee has contributed much to this guide- a group of pupils from Senior 7 to VI Formwho willingly provide us with an insight into their online lives. Much has been learnt from our discussions with them and we hope that their insight will prove invaluable to you.