| Parenting was never a piece of cake in
any age, but probably the greatest source of headache for parents today in Japan
is the ubiquitous cellphone. Today, 96 percent of senior high school students
and 58 percent of junior high school students have cellphones. Even among
primary school children, 31 percent have them. By enabling youngsters to stay connected with their parents at all times, these gadgets help to keep children safe. For the kids, they are fun toys, too, that let them text to or chat with their pals whenever they want, play Internet games, and enjoy blogging for their own profile and diary purposes. But terrible dangers lurk beneath all that fun and convenience. Every year about h 000 children become involved in rape and other crimes through dating service sites. Violent and obscene images are only a couple of clicks away. On gakkoura saito, or so-called unofficial school websites where kids can post whatever they want, anyone can fall victim to brutal "verbal mob lynching" by their peers. Amid today's urgent need to address these problems, the government's Meeting on Education Rebuilding has issued a report. In response to the Prime Minister's recent comments — "I cannot think of one good reason for (letting youngsters) have a cellphone" and "I would like everyone to discuss whether cellphones are really necessary" — the report recommended that "parents, guardians, schools and all parties concerned should cooperate among themselves, so that elementary school pupils and junior high school students do not have a cellphone unless there is a compelling reason for them to do so." But since many parents believe in the necessity of cellphones as a safety tool, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to do away with them. Rather, it would make more sense for guardians, schools and cellphone companies to consider, from their respective standpoints, how cellphones should be used by children. We suggest that parents sit down with their offsprings and talk about their "house rules" for cellphone use. For instance, set the hours allowed, so the kids won't be texting to their friends late into the night, remind them never to give away personal information online, and so on, But there are limits to what individual families can do, and this is where we also suggest that schools should educate their pupils on the dangers of cellphone use. One way to go about this, for instance, may be for each class to set its own rules on sending e-mail messages. |