Student Wellbeing
Digital Tattoo Presentation
Child Safe Standard 4 - Family Engagement – Families and communities are informed, and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing.
Child Safe Standard 9 Child Safety in physical and online environments - Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
Last term Leigh Bartlett from Batforce presented her parent information session titled Digital Tattoo. This presentation for parents of primary aged children and aimed to assist parents to support their children navigate the digital world. I have included a link to the slides that Leigh presented on the night and included some summary points for those who were unavailable to attend the night.
Link to Digital Tattoo Presentation Slides
Link to Digital Tattoo - Because I love you - Conversations to have before your children log on.
1. Leigh started the presentation with a focus on Healthy Relationships. She highlighted the importance of healthy relationships online and how they should replicate the in person relationships. The key elements of healthy relationships include:
- We give each other the time to speak
- We give each other the time to think
- We give each other the time to respond
- We give each other the space to be different
- We let our mates say no if they want
- We look out for our mates
2. Patterns Matter- The patterns we begin as a young person can stay with us for life.
This advice is very significant for parents with young children.If young children develop patterns around using tech to self soothe, reduce boredom or alleviate loneliness then these strategies may be the only ones that young people use. It is important that young people create a range of patterns to self soothe, cope with boredom and deal with loneliness.
Leigh also spoke about the importance of creating patterns around when, where and how long tech is used. Setting up rules around the use of tech from an early age helps with the development of positive patterns they can take into their teenage years.
Leigh spoke of the need to create space for technology. With this she spoke about the importance that good behaviour is modelled, having a place for technology to live in your house, preferably outside of the bedroom and that this includes gaming consoles, mobile phones, ipads and computers.
With this, Leigh spoke of the need to celebrate boredom. As parents we often feel the need to ‘solve’ the problem of boredom? Technology should never be a cure for boredom. Children need to find the time to explore their worlds both inner and outer - this is the beginning of creativity. A great way to take control of your life is to ‘consider’ what to do with boredom. 20 mins of boredom can be the best gift you can give your child....take the challenge.
3. Modelling
Leigh challenged us to think how we model the following:
- Gender
- Respect
- Tolerance & acceptance
- Healthy relationships
- The use of alcohol and energy drinks
- Gambling and gaming - exposure to violence
- Technology use
- How we drive
- Gaining consent
Parents’ attitudes towards these issues are more important than you think. The need to rethink the ‘do as I say not do as I do.’
- From birth to 18 we have 936 weeks to impart the skills and knowledge we want our children to know before they are adults.
- By the time they begin secondary we have approx. 260 weeks left.
- Conversations are important but never underestimate the impact of role modelling as parents and carers you are the teachers that last well beyond the school year
4. Help seeking - Who do our children turn to when things are not right or when they feel unsafe?
Having conversations with our children to help them to design a plan for when they need help is very important. Children need toknow to speak up if they feel something doesn’t feel safe. We often ask children to use the image of their hand when developing a plan for seeking help. Eachfinger and thumb represents the people they will go to when they don’t feel safe. It is important that children can identify five different people they can turn to for help whenever they need it.
5. Other issues discussed by Leigh included:
6. Resources
Australian eSafety Commissioner
Batforce (Barwon Adolescent Task Force) Resource Page
Paul Anderson
Student Wellbeing Leader