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.