4yr old ds just cried himself to sleep afraid of the nasty people on the internet coming to get him...

[TickledPurple]

I am all for e-safety and preventative work early on, but feel concerned that my son doesn't even know what the internet really is and therefore to instill fear before he even has a concept of it isn't helpful?
Its not a major 'I'm going to throw all toys out of pram and march into school' issue, but I do feel a little irked that he has been made to fear something he doesn't yet understand and so instead imagines all type of horrors of people 'pretending to be nice just to trap him and do nasty things'. May well be our issue as he doesn't have computers, tabs. etc at home, just feels too much too soon maybe? Prepared for others to disagree.

Well perhaps school could have handled better but 4 is not too early. We have read Chicken Clicking to our 5yo and she totally gets it about internet being fun but do not use your name, address, age or go to meet anyone esp without telling mum and dad, she has a leap pad rather than a tablet so is not online, but still needs to be aware as the time will come all too soon.

For anyone worried about kids inadvertently clicking on something, check out the triple click on Apple devices that locks to whatever is on the screen I.e. A video or an app, I think android has something similar

Sorry for hijack, what does triple click do/ what is it for?

Thanks

Has he not had any IT lessons yet at school?

Schools do need to tread a bit more carefully with very small children. Mine at that age was scared witless of house fires after the fire service came in to give them all a talk about safety - despite my reassurances that we had no candles/open fires/cigarette smoking in the house, we had several bad nights.

Dd is 4 and has her own iPad which she plays apps on, but given she can't read or write yet I think anyone would struggle to groom her. She tried to type a text to her best friend the other day, it came out as 'xxxxxvcccvvbzzxxxxxx'. Ds is in Y2 and I would think it would be a wholly appropriate lesson for him, but Nursery I think seems very young.

Sounds like they've shown him the cartoon for kids about Internet safety at school? Will find link.

www.thinkuknow.co.uk/5_7/leeandkim/
Not sure how to link, sorry.

Look up Hector's world - its on the thinkuknow/ceop site but it's a good way of teaching e safety to little ones in a way that doesn't promote fear but awareness.
It's OK for 4 n has parent/teacher notes
Lots of cute videos n hector is a dolphin :)

We have a safety zone on the biters devices. No actual free link to the net despite their being able to play their apps.

These 'stranger on the internet' talks are pretty standard now, although I don't think that a 4yr old should need it if they're being supervised properly on appropriate equipment and in-school systems

We just had the harder hitting version complete with a teacher teaching DH & I to suck eggs for an hour for biter 2&3 (who are 9&10). To be fair all the children have to do a full 'internet safety' course as well.

Biter1 (16) watched the paedophile hunter with us a couple of years ago by way of an 'they're out there'.

To be honest I am amazed at how many teachers who spent an hour teaching me to suck eggs people give tiny ones i-pads and the like..and don't get me started on facebook, twitter or instagram and why 10yr olds have them

That said, recently, despite our personal safeguards, biter3 came home from a friend's house having watched a very inappropriate music video by mistake. Scared him so badly he told us practically the minute he got in the door. Cue 2 nights minimal sleep and an 'in case you don't know' phone call to the friend's parents (who it should be noted immediately changed their house settings & were pleased we'd told them).

On MN there are 4yo children reading Harry Potter. These children could probably have a conversation by text pretty easily - especially if they had a keyboard that was abc rather than qwerty.

There are many sites used by 4year olds that include the option to befriend people. My children received requests from total strangers when they used to play Moshi Monsters. Tbh they were perfectly happy to learn that they could only befriend people online if they knew them in real life and I showed them how to block or reject friend requests from strangers.

I think at 4 it should have just focused on how to stay safe rather than what could happen if you don't.

It's hard cause there are a few parents who don't supervise online access even for a four year old, or who do but don't understand enough to know what controls to set up as the child gets older.

But at 4 it really should be along the lines of "ask mummy/daddy/granny/etc before using a website or app, especially if you haven't before. If anything worries you tell a grown up straight away"

I think they should put this sort of thing on the TV.

You hardly ever get public safety information type adverts any more.

The 70s was full of them, including how to do the green cross code.

Worra Charlie says....

The public safety adverts in the 80s were terrifying to me as a probably a bit over sensitive and imaginative little girl. There was one that I presume in retrospect was about the dangers of smoking in bed. I didn't get that aspect and thought beds were spontaneously combusting. I slept on the floor of my bedroom for a week!

I also remember the awful don't play on the railway track ones we got shown at school. I was traumatised even though I was the sort of little girl who would never ever have done something like that.

I remember one where a sofa catches fire. I'm still nervous around matches as an adult.

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