There's a stranger in my house!

Two week ago my daughter brought home a laptop from school. She has pretty much always had access to a computer, either from my husband or me. But, generally she is in our presence and monitored to an extent. Now, thanks to our progressive education, my thirteen year old has been unleashed into the cyber world alone and unattended. I can’t say I’m overjoyed with this.

My fear of the internet begins with a movie called “StrangeLand”. In this movie a psychopath, who loves to inflict pain on his victims, lures a cop’s daughter and her friend to his house and proceeds to torture them and others. An avid lover of scary movies- this movie was especially scary to me because the killer was exceedingly sadistic. This began my mistrust of the internet.

Now my precious teen sits in her room skyping and sharing pictures and God knows what else! Who let this entity in my house? I’m happy my daughter is being more social, though. She, like me, is not very social and usually avoids engaging with or talking to friends after school. This, perhaps, will bring her out of her shell and help her to be more social and develop true friendships.

But, I still can’t help but think of Amanda Todd’s story and others where kids have been abused on the net and worry that the wrong person will enter her cyber space and cause her pain- all right under my nose, in my very home, amongst the internet.