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Cell Phones and Children – the Dangers |
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One morning I was interviewed on Masa- A- Sele (RB 1) for 10 minutes. The subject was whether
it was appropriate for parents to buy their children cell phones and whether it was safe for children of 10 years and below to have such mobile phones.
My answer, it really depends on the parents and why they think their children should own cell phones.
The radio presenters’ concern was the use of cell phones for pornography and to lure children into having sex with older people, which is definitely inappropriate.
I was amazed because I did not think we Batswana are at that level of confusion. I mean, doing that means we too have joined the cyber world of corruption and of corrupting our own children, which is shocking and scary.
After the interview I thought about what the presenter had asked, and why the topic, and I convinced myself that there is no smoke without fire; go raya gore sengwenyana se teng, ba teng bo rre le bo mme, who are using cell phones to corrupt young peoples’ minds.
As a parent and seeing how much our children are into social network services such as chat rooms and bo- face book, I thought again about the horrors that are rumoured to exists about some of these services.
Not all services are bad and not all children use these facilities to search for dates, but there are dangers that we cannot ignore. Now cell phones…gatwe re reng? One thing I have heard that is probably true is that, bagolo ba rekela bana di units, so as to buy time for conversation, followed by meetings… then a date …then sex…
What are we saying about our morals and who is to blame?
I am not going blame anybody, nor am I going to address a certain age. What I’m simply trying to do is discuss the cell phone problem as is, and how it can affect every young person. Attention is a dangerous thing and people sometimes look for attention in the wrong places.
For some children who feel unloved, when an older man/woman buys units for them and chats forever with them - and of course telling the child how beautiful or handsome he/she is, that child will be flattered and happy.
You hear stories like: “Unlike my mum or dad, he/she is “nice”, “descent”, “for real”, “I can say anything without fear”, “We click”. Those flattered are trusting and take these advances seriously and do not recognize the signs or red flags of danger looming.
Kana gape re gakologelwe, that some of these young people may really have no experience of pornography or sexual language, so for them to be chosen could make them think that they are better than their peers, which is why I keep saying their little minds are being corrupted.
On the other hand this older person may be married with children, or already involved, and to them this would be cheating in a relatively safe environment.
I always say there is no formula to raising a child, but every parent has his/her ground rules; some parents buy their children cell phones for a good reason - so that they can communicate with them and know where they are when they need them.
But as parents we need to be reasonable and should buy age appropriate cell phones if the sole purpose is to talk. Why buy children phones that have photo taking facilities in them? Much as we may think of predators first, there is yet another danger - of a child being assaulted, beaten up and hurt because of an expensive cell phone; the more expensive the phone the more we put our children’s lives at risk. So batsadi, be careful there. Parents should also be open, attentive, approachable, and listen to your children.
Teach your children that they don’t always have to respond or acknowledge bo malome/bo aunty who are “nice” to them; that they don’t owe anyone any thing, especially an older person who is regressing and loosing it.
Tota mo Setswananeng dikgang tsa sex between a younger and older person ga di motlhofo. Once there is diversion in communication, that should be a ‘red flag”; tell your children to be aware of that. Whoever talks sex to a young person and, mo sephiring, has no morals and does not deserve to be respected at all.
Once those avenues are clear, your children will tell you what happens in their day to day lives and point to those who aim to bully or abuse them.
We do have predators in our society that target young boys and girls and who will do anything, such as buying units for a child, so they could sleep with them. These (the predators) are sick people who need help and should be assisted to get the help they need.
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