“PARENTS need to wake up and realise the only way to stop their children being cyberbullied is to ban them from using social media, the WA Police Force warns.” This is what ‘PerthNow’ reported today on its website.

The website is quoting acting Assistant Commissioner of State Crime Pryce Scanlan, speaking to an inquiry examining cyberbullying laws.

Some more quotes from the article:

“In the context of cyberbullying, adults/parents need to understand that content cannot be reliably filtered or controlled and ceasing participation in social media is the only effective method to end cyberbullying,” he said.

“Kids are getting a proportion of their sex education and information from the pornography they find online. This is changing the types of sexual activity risk-taking young adults and juveniles perform, normalising activities which were previously considered fringe,” he said.

This is a warning, which we as Free Reformed parents should certainly take to heart. From conversations with them I know that several of the Free Reformed children have free access to internet and social media on their mobile phones or have a computer in their bedroom where they can unsupervised access these sites. Sometimes, we can encounter an attitude among parents, like: ‘my child doesn’t do this’, assuming that they can safely let their children use social media and internet. Others believe that they can keep their children safe by using certain software. That is a dream. “In the context of cyberbullying, adults/parents need to understand that content cannot be reliably filtered or controlled and ceasing participation in social media is the only effective method …”

Let us take to heart this warning from the worldly authorities. Our children are, just like we ourselves, by nature not different from others in this world and Satan never ceases to attack them as well, or rather them especially.