On this site I will often draw to your attention what I call, ‘a teachable moment’. We should grab these with glee as they are sometimes easy ways of getting a message across without sounding as if you are nagging and without being accused of being ‘old and boring’!
Conversationalists, teen boys are not! It is hard to get more than a grunt or a ‘whatever’ from them sometimes and this makes having those ‘must have’ discussions almost impossible. So I try to post news like this particular item that will allow you to ask your son or daughter, “What do you think about this?” If we can engage them in a conversation and allow them to give their opinion, it may get them thinking about their own online behaviour. Now this instance is a relatively extreme case in some ways however sadly teenagers in Australia have been doing something similar: rating girls on their looks on social media. This is really just one step away from this situation.
Most interesting is that this man has had a jail sentence handed down, albeit, deferred. It is one of the first times this has occured in Australia and has to send the message that the law is starting to catch up with social media activity.
Happy chatting!
Man banned from Facebook over sex ratings page – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
