Principal's Corner Feb 26, 2016

Social Media- it’s our hot topic again. While it’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with friends and family across distances, some people use the anonymity of the Internet to intimidate and harass individuals. Some of this unpleasantness is occurring in our schools.

Because you can post something and notback it up with facts, notface the individual you vilify, nor use your name to take responsibility, cruelty has become more prolific on the Internet. This social websites have created courageous cowards, who speak behind the screen, becoming crueler with practice. Social websites aren’t just Facebook and Pinterest anymore. They include Snapchat, Kik, and Instagram, all of which you post from a phone.

What can we do? Check your child’s phone. Insist on knowing their passwords to see who they communicate with and how. Parents have told me they want to respect their child’s privacy. I agree, everyone needs privacy, but bullying on social media is not private- just sneaky. Especially when we’re speaking about minors. Because we are their parents, we have a responsibility to educate them academically, socially, and emotionally. This means supervision, including the Internet and cell phone usage.

Children can often become mislead by others and make poor choices. The resulting consequences can be devastating. Parents are surprised when we suspend a child for a cruel and hurtful posting or picture on social media about another student- even though a posting has been repeated over and over. Their response often has a common theme: We didn’t know they were saying those things. We would never have allowed them to do that. What they said doesn’t go along with the values we teach at home. They’ve never done this before. We didn’t want to invade their privacy.

If I could change the world, I would have cell phones that can only answer or make a phone call for all children under the age of 18. That’s all we need -- to be able to call them and have them call us. But that’s not a super power I have. All I can ask is that you check their phones. What’s on social media is there forever. Even if you say you’re sorry, and you feel regret, the posting never really goes away- especially if someone forwarded it. And they’ll pay the price over and over.

Help keep our children safe,

Cynthia Dodd
Principal RHMS