Educational talk on bullying and the risks of the Internet

On 23 February 2022, in two sessions, the first starting at 16:00 and the second at 18:00, we will hold a training session for parents on the «Risks of the Internet» and «Bullying» at CEIP San Luis de Sabinillas (Primary School building). The session will be given by members of the Guardia Civil Command of Málaga, as part of the «Master Plan for coexistence and improved safety in schools and their surroundings».

Access will be permitted to adults only; they may not bring their children or any minors with them.

Attendance is completely free and open to any adult with an interest in these subjects (whether or not they are members of the AMPA): fathers, mothers, educators, grandparents…

What is the Master Plan?

It is a framework collaboration agreement on education for improved safety between the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of the Interior, dating from 2006. Following Instruction no. 7/2013 of the Secretary of State for Security, the «Master Plan for Coexistence and Improved Safety in Schools and their Surroundings» was established on a permanent basis. The Ministries involved are Interior; Education and Vocational Training; and Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare.

The actions contained in the Master Plan include the following:

• Talks and activities in schools aimed at pupils, covering:

1. The consequences of bullying for those who suffer it, and everyone’s responsibility to report and combat it.
2. Prevention of the risks arising from drug and alcohol use by minors and young people.
3. Problems relating to youth gangs, antisocial and vandalistic behaviour, racism, xenophobia and intolerance.
4. Violence against women, discrimination on grounds of sex or sexual orientation, etc.
5. Prevention of the security risks associated with new technologies and the use of social media.

• Raising awareness among pupils and guiding them on behaviour that can lead to criminal or violent acts, promoting the values of responsibility, equality, respect and coexistence.

• Providing them with tools to prevent conflicts and to avoid the risk of becoming victims of certain crimes (sexual abuse or assault, bullying, access to certain Internet content, etc.).

• Instilling the need to tell parents and teachers, or ask them for help, about events that take place inside or outside the school, when the seriousness of the situation warrants it.

• Improving their knowledge of the security forces, the public service they provide to the community and the various channels for contacting them, as well as confidence in how they work.

What is the training session about?

We will cover 2 main points:

• Bullying: how to identify it, how to act, is our child a victim or an aggressor? It is estimated that more than 1.5 million minors in Spain have suffered or are suffering it. Bullying can leave lifelong effects on our children and, at times, a fatal outcome.

• The risks of the Internet: the rapid development of technology has not allowed families and educators to accompany our children in a critical and responsible use of it. This evolution often causes parents stress, frustration and fear; we feel the issue is slipping out of our control and excuse ourselves with «we can’t do anything because children know more than we do». It is precisely this attitude of non-intervention and educational abstention that causes that frustration. It is our duty as parents to educate ourselves so that we can then educate our children on matters as important as judging the quality of information, the dangers of indiscriminate contact with strangers, or the need to keep control over access to our privacy.

This sounds like a bore… I’ll skip it

We will only give you a few figures from the «Study on safe habits in the use of ICT by adolescent children» and the «Study on child safety and minors’ habits on the Internet»:

• Minors access the Internet mainly from their own homes, mostly from computers without filtering systems.
• The average age of a minor’s first Internet access is around 10 or 11.
• Half of minors have received no information at all on basic safety rules when using the Internet.
• A quarter of minors have at some point visited pornographic or violent websites, or sites with racist and/or xenophobic content.
• 30% of minors who regularly use the Internet have given out their telephone number at some point while online, and 16% of the minors surveyed have given their address and/or arranged to meet a stranger through the Internet.
• What worries parents most is the risk of dependency or excessive use, well ahead of the other situations: computer viruses, sexual harassment, interaction with strangers, scams and fraud, or access to inappropriate content.
Don’t you think these are reasons enough to attend and find out more?

OK… but that will NEVER happen to my child

Then let me put a few questions to you to convince you:

• Don’t you watch, or didn’t you watch, your small child in the park so that they didn’t hurt themselves on the swings?
• Weren’t you attentive when your child hit another child or was hit in the park?
• Aren’t you interested in the friends your teenage child spends time with?
• Don’t you ask them about the places they go to and where they hang out?
• Don’t you control the content your child watches on television?
• Ask your child who «Huggy Wuggy» is. I was astonished by my son’s answer, and they are videos with violent content.

I could go on asking you about more everyday situations, and I know the answer you would give me, but now I ask you:
• Aren’t you worried about what your child sees on the Internet?
• Aren’t you worried about how they use their mobile phone and whether they may be offending, or being offended by, other minors?
• Aren’t you worried about who they talk to and who they give private details of their life to?
• And finally… if any of these situations worries you, how are you helping your child to have the tools to defend themselves on the Internet?

To convince you to attend the session, I will mention just one thing that we must always keep firmly in mind:
We cannot protect our children from what we do not know

Registration

Register on the school website in the AMPA section, or at the school office by filling in the form, Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 11:00. There will be 2 sessions with small groups, the first at 16:00 and the second at 18:00 (the session will last approximately 1 hour 30 minutes), so don’t miss out on your place. If either session does not have all its places filled, people may attend until the limit is reached without having registered on the school website, but you may be left without a place, so we recommend that you register at the school office or using the form below.

Fill in the registration form by clicking here