Good evening London, today I will be portraying what I feel on the matter of parental guidance on the internet. I guess this topic is highly debatable seeing as this is probably a touchy subject because it criticizes the actions of adults and how they choose to raise their children, but nonetheless, this really needs to be, in a sense, brought to light.

Children are naturally curious, being brought up in a world where everything is hidden would defeat the purpose of growing up and adults need to start understanding that. I mean – not that I condone the advertisement of ‘Adult things’ to children, it’s just that they should be aware of the dangers. Such as betting sites and the element of stranger danger. Of course, the odd porno or any other ‘terrifying’ thing would pop out of nowhere and onto your child’s computer screen, but that wouldn’t occur if you remove your cookies and/ or history- (heheh).

Okay, I can tell some of you guys feel  offended about what I just said but children deserve a bit of adventure in their lives, of course the off ‘scary picture’ would pop out and shock your child, but that’s all part of learning isn’t it? What I’m trying to say is that even if something is blocked on the internet there are always a way around it, causing your child to have a hard time doing so, but ultimately having access to the website nonetheless, but opening up and allowing them to search the web and learning from their mistakes (obviously with some parental guidance) they can and will be able to grow up successfully in the digital age.

Do you honestly want your children to grow up feeling owned by someone else? Being overprotective may not result in an obedient, loving child but a rebellious, freedom loving teenager in later years. The only way around that is if you restrict your child’s communication with the outside world, but that would plainly make you an unfit parent.

The noun, Parental Guidance is useless, well, it does work very well to box up someone’s knowledge if they are in an environment where grown up things aren’t really mentioned like in primary schools but as they progress to higher forms of education they can and will have access to what they want. What parents really need to understand that mirroring their protective nature on a child’s internet access where the parent’s control is very limited does not work, well, most of the time?

I will conclude this rant with something a friend of mine one said: ‘We worry so much about out offspring that we tend to forget that the next generation deserves to truly become the next generation, not a carbon copy of the previous one’.