FACEBOOK requires all participants to be at least 13 years old before they can create an account.
Yet, scores of primary school children are using Facebook freely with the knowledge of their parents.
It is a violation of Facebook policy to register a false account or help a person under 13 to do so.
There are very good reasons for this.
Children do not have the judgement or maturity to operate such a potentially dangerous social media tool.
They share photos of themselves and others as well as personal information which is not supposed to be available in the public sphere at all.
No matter how many awareness campaigns are rolled out in school, if parents do not take responsibility for their child’s safety, they are left wide open for attack.
Scores of children are forgotten at school. Schools do not allow cellphones, so they have no way to contact parents.
I have personally picked up and took home many, many children of all ages, race groups and income sectors.
None of them ask any questions.
If you stop, they run and hop in.
Teachers are hands in hair about this. They also have families and responsibilities they have to attend to.
They can’t be expected to take over that responsibility as well. But at the same token, they can come up with a workable plan.
Please parents, teachers, schools and children, come up with a particular action plan for your home and school to mitigate this situation.
If you think your job is done when you have taught them to brush their teeth, bath, greet adults, read and write and play sports, you are dead wrong.
