Calls for parents to cut their kids off
A US headmaster has called for kids to be cut off from
social notworking sites.
Benjamin Franklin Middle School Anthony Orsini, in
Ridgewood, sent out an e-mail Wednesday morning asking parents to help him get
all of his students off social networks and read all there SMSs. The email deals with Facebook as if it was peddling crack
and implied that kids were sending SMS messages to meet with paedophiles after
school.
He ordered parents to “sit down with your child (and they
are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member
of any social networking site. Today!” Orsini said that kids need to know that parents will read
all their SMS and text messages and will get these from the Mobile Phone
companies.
"Let them know that you will be installing Parental
Control Software so you can tell every place they have visited online, and
everything they have instant messaged or written to a friend. Don't install it
behind their back, but install it!"
Legally Orsini's e-mail is just a request, but he said
“There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a
social networking site Let me repeat that - there is absolutely, positively no
reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!
None."
He claimed that the sites have become a tool for children
to do psychological harm to each other, often anonymously. Meredith
Wearly, the school's guidance counsellor, said
about 75 percent of her day is spent dealing with social networking
issues with
students. Well at least you are not having to deal with kids doing
drugs, maybe you should get a better perspective or find another line
of work. Orsini said he's heard no adult opposition to the idea so
it confirms he must be right.
An alternative reason is that parents think he is
a jumped up autocratic nutter who is best left alone in case he gets even more
ugly.