You think your safe because your child is not on social media.

But school emails need to be monitored as well.

I thought we were doing everything right, no social media.
No electronics unsupervised.
We taught our kids about Social Circle Colours
Conversations around online safety.
We felt quietly confident we were doing all we could to protect our children.
 
Then when setting up our sons new computer as he heads into Year 7, I login to the school email address. The one he was given when he started school many years ago.
Buried in the inbox, I saw a message sent back in Grade 5.
It was short.
Two words.
Cruel
Targeted.
“Hi AuTisme”
 
So many parents believe if we can keep our kids off social media, TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, they are protected. If they don’t have phones we can keep them safe from bullies.
But we are naïve.
School issued emails, internal messages on school learning platforms are often the first digital spaces our kids are given, and they are rarely monitored, and as parents we have little access.
We feel safe as they are ‘official’, so they feel ‘safe’ but they are not always.
Bullies always find a way.
 

I am not sure why I was so blindsided with the email.
I am not sure why I thought the school email would be safe.  
We are not immune to bullying in our house, and because of that we spend a lot of time protecting our children, teaching them how to be safe online and in person.
When my daughter started year 7 the year before, I reminded her that whatever she sends in email is there forever. To think before she sends anything.
I told her not to click on links.
But I never thought about school emails in primary school.
I never thought to warn them.
 
But now I know School emails are not a safe space, and going forward I will need to be more vigilant.
I will have to walk a fine line in letting my child have the independence and privacy, but also be protected.

You see, the hardest part of the email wasn’t the message.
It was realising that it came years ago, and sat in his inbox as a reminder every time he logged in, until I removed it.
It was the fact, the child who sent it, would never be punished for his cruelty, would never know the pain it caused.
But the hardest part was that our son, didn’t tell anyone.
Not because it wasn’t nasty
Not because he didn’t care.
But because he was so used to the comments that it didn’t even register as something he should tell anyone about.
 
Bullies don’t need social media.
Bullies are everywhere.
Bullies adapt.
They use whatever tools they can, in person or online.
School platforms, school emails, other learning platforms.
Banning social media isn’t the only solution, we need to teach children to be kind.
We need to teach them empathy.
We need to teach them to embrace differences.
We need to not be naïve, and think that banning social media will fix all the issues.
 
Removing Social media, doesn’t remove Bullying, in some cases it just changes the delivery method.