Why would an 11 year old be on the internet at all? Homework, from a surprisingly young age, often expects and requires internet use. Personally I would have p

Why would an 11 year old be on the internet at all? Homework, from a surprisingly young age, often expects and requires internet use. Personally I would have preferred a reasonable mix of all sources, including using a library, and when and why to choose - the internet often lacks depth, or is wrong, and kids often go through a stage of "it's on the internet, it must be true". I'm not convinced they all get past that, as if they do it's self-learnt. Adults too. Guided use is for younger than 11 as they'll use the net in class and for homework, as well as socially well before high school these days. You'd better have tried to give them the tools and skills to try and judge, be suspicious etc before then. Considering most people really aren't that tech aware, how is a non-tech parent meant to judge when is the right moment? My peer group isn't even slightly representative as there was a heavy presence of router rules, firewalls, non-admin access and so on. None of which is there the moment they hook up to coffee shop or friend's wifi. So, just like walking to school, best you can do is give them the nudges to fend for themselves, and hopefully know when to yell for help or advice from parent or teacher. (Teach would probably be non techie, and not much use either). Then you have peer pressure. It's hard to resist too early smartphone or social media use when your kid is the last in class without, and it's their main form of contact. They don't call round houses or phone like we did in my, pre-internet schooldays. Facebook et al say you shouldn't have an account before 13, but there is precisely no enforcement of that. So what to do? As you say children can be quite cruel, often especially to those who don't conform. We judged the right moment was around 12-13 - high school is when kids get properly cruel. We were amongst the last of the very late adopters as far as we can tell... Critical thinking is one thing that is markedly absent in education, it's far more checking the boxes of giving them a tech education, and schools using "modern stuff", like those mostly pointless interactive whiteboards all the schools got at great expense. No evidence of teaching them to think, to judge, to differentiate between ads and SERPs, or which SERPs might be potentially trustworthy, how to judge a source's credibility, etc, etc. Course critical thinking might have some of them questioning the system... :)