'Children's online life should be monitored'

Puja Pednekar

Parents and schools find it hard to keep tabs on children's internet activities. With latest gizmos and internet access at their fingertips, parents and schools say that it is very difficult to ensure their safety against unscrupulous elements online.

In the era of the Internet, not only do parents have to worry about whether their children talk to strangers or look, they also must keep in mind the online world, one where kids can meet even bigger predators and cyber bullies.

"Children may be tech savvy but they are also naive. They don't realise that anything they say can come back to haunt them and that everyone on the web is not necessarily who they say they are, said Meena Salkar, a gynaecologist and mother.

Children don't realise that everyone on the web is not necessarily who they say they are

To discourage students from misusing the Internet, schools and colleges have put in place strict rules, parental blocks, monitoring programmes and advisories within the campus.

"On the first day of college, we warn our students of the dangers of misusing the Internet. We have strictly banned access to anything other than educational sites on our computers and offenders have to pay a heavy fine or face severe punishment," said T A Shivare, principal Hinduja College, Charni Road.

Schools and college principals admit that their authority and control is only limited within campus.

"We lecture them on how the Internet is a good slave but a very bad master. But there is only so much we can do parents need to strictly monitor them," said Abha Dharam Pal, Principal Utpal Sanghvi School.

This threat is an even bigger concern during holidays, when children spend more time at home and online, potentially unsupervised say parents.

"We have installed parental blocks like PC Pandora, but our boys are always one step ahead when it comes to technology. They manage to find some loophole or the other," said Anita Nagwekar, mother of two. Nevertheless, after getting around parental locks, children turn to their parents when something goes wrong.

"Sometime ago my friend went on a date with some guy she met online. She sneaked out of her house under the pretext of visiting a friend. But, when she did not come home till late night, we got worried and informed her parents," said Neha Mishra, 13, a student of a schools in Andheri, she added, "Fortunately, we found them in time and everything turned out okay. But, it could have been a lot worse,"