Holidays’ bet nasty gifts alert

GEELONG parents have been urged to protect young teens from pornography on Christmas cyber-gifts and social media over summer holidays.
With research showing kids as young as 11 exposed to explicit online pornography and teens looking to the internet for sex education, Deakin expert Debbie Ollis says parents need to be extra-vigilant over the holidays.
Dr Ollis said the holiday period was the “tip of an iceberg’’ in understanding the impact of the internet and social media on sex education and sexual development.
“Some young people are learning about sex in the most negative way, particularly boys,’’ she told the Independent.
“It can be so far from reality that they can’t possibly have respectful relations if that’s their understanding of sexuality.’’
“It’s very hard, the way social media is set up, to really protect kids from it. If parents aren’t actively involved in knowing what kids are doing, controls on social media are very difficult.”
Education department figures last year put Geelong’s teen sex rate for 15 to 17-year-olds at 40 per cent, almost twice the state average of 22 per cent.
Six per cent, or one in 16, children aged between 12 and 14 had engaged in sex.
Dr Ollie said the material kids could be exposed to on the internet could be “quite horrific’’.
The holiday season was when many young teens would gain access to social media for the first time, often without supervision as parents worked over the break.
“The education department is working very hard in the school environment to ensure it doesn’t happen at school and to prepare kids with the skills to negotiate the net and social media and make sense of what they’re exposed to,’’ Dr Ollie said.
“But with the holidays we’re on the tip of an iceberg in terms and understanding and impact. It’s absolutely right that parents have to take active part.”