Shouldn’t Parents be Responsible for Their Kids?

The topic of who is responsible for a child’s security online is for some reason unknown to me a much debated one. The answer to me seems blatantly simple; at home the parents are responsible. At school the teachers are responsible. The only point in time this can get dodgy is when the child is at a friends home and then you are relying on the other parent to be responsible. At the end of the day it is the adult in charge of the child who is responsible for their safety.

The argument against this is that it is so easy for children to get onto the Internet in today’s day and age, and to a point I can see where you are coming from. But at the same time that is also a choice that the parent makes. For a child to be able to access the Internet in their bedroom the parent has to allow them a separate computer or laptop. For a child to access the Internet on their phone the parent has to provide them with a phone that can access the Internet. The Internet has gradually become more potentially dangerous than the town centre at night, and most parents wouldn’t dream of letting a young child wander alone at night. If they did and the child was exposed to danger then no one would have any issues with dragging the parent through the mud for being irresponsible. Look at Madeline McCann’s parents and the hailstorm of abuse and allegations they received from leaving their children unaccompanied in a hotel room. But for some reason people are quite happy to leave children alone to meander the Internet in their spare time and then act surprised and outraged when something goes wrong.

We live in a compensation based culture where the first reaction to something going wrong appears to be the instinct to find someone to blame and then preferably sue them. Everybody wants to duck the responsibility and this isn’t helped by a culture which is so willing to pander to this. Part of the issue as I can see it is that there is a generation of teachers and parents who do not fully understand the technology which the children are using. But throughout history technology has been evolving and changing to mean that the older generation will always be struggling to keep up, but throughout history they have always managed. What is so different now?