Online Safety: The Responsibility of Schools or Parents?

I recently read a blog post on why parents should be concerned with teaching their children about digital safety. (You can find the link below if you would like to read it.) Many people believe that it is the schools responsibility to teach students about online safety, but in his post Corey Tutewiler suggests that it is more of a partnership between schools and parents. He argues that children begin learning in the home before ever coming to school and most children, whether good or bad, tend to exhibit behavior more similar to their parents than any teacher or educator.

I tend to agree with Tutewiler's point of view. I definitely think the responsibility of teaching children about online safety falls on the shoulders of both parents and educators. It is important for students to be safe while at school, but once students leave school grounds, educators cannot be solely responsible for what students do online. Parents need to be aware of what their children are doing on their devices.

I recently had a colleague hand me his phone because he was on Facebook and couldn't figure out why an inappropriate account was showing up on his feed. He said he had denied adding the account to his friend list. As I took his phone, I looked at his feed and the account wasn't showing up because he was friends with the person. It was showing up because his daughter had accepted a friend request from the account. My colleague was shocked that his daughter would add someone to her social media that she did not know and was clearly inappropriate. We talked about how as parents we assume our children know how to be safe online because a lot of times they know more about different sites, apps, etc. than we do. He determined that when he got home, he would sit down with his children and talk about online safety and make sure they got rid of people they do no know on their accounts.

I think this is an important discussion all parents should have with their children. Social media was not a very big thing yet when I was in high school, but my parents only allowed my siblings and I to have a MySpace (I know, old right!?) and later a Facebook account if they had our passwords. We also knew that our parents could take our phones whenever they felt like it and read any texts on there. My parents did not do this in a malicious or overbearing way. They explained that it was for our safety, and they tried to respect and allow us some privacy while still making sure we were being safe. Technology is going to continue to change, so as parents, I think we have to stay on top of the parental controls and tools that are available to keep our children safe.

Gaggle Speaks - Safe Schools Begin at Home: Why Parents Should be Concerned about Student Online Safety