Stronger

Well for someone whom had a completely empty diary a month ago, I'm doing quite well now. It's exactly one month today that I went for my assessment at The Maytree. I couldn't even have imagined what a huge turning point in my life it would be, but it became a lifeline which has, in turn, put me on a brand new path (complete with shiny new sign posts). That's not to say all the problems have gone away, I still have some pretty huge ones, but all I can do is reach out to professionals and hope they can help find a solution.

8 Simple Tips for Keeping Your Teen Safe Online

When I was a teen there was no Internet, and no mobile phones. A mobile phone was a little green piece of plastic, the size of a credit card that afforded you a set amount of credit to make calls from a public card phone. It was the thing of it's time! No messing around trying to find change to put in the pay phone and then dropping the next coin just as the pips went off to warn you your credit was running out. Nope, we just went to the special card phone and popped in our bit of plastic. All very high tech.

Because we had no mobile phones, or computers we spoke to one another. You would arrange to meet somewhere at a given time and then you just took for granted it would happen. No texting to say you're on your way, or you got held up. Sharing a photo, meant getting the film from your camera developed at the chemist and then showing the prints to your friends and family by passing them around.

Keeping safe for us, meant, not going near the big kids, not walking down lonely dark alleys, not talking to strangers or taking anything from them, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not saying it was better back then, but perhaps it was simpler. Or at least keeping ourselves safe was simpler. Whereas, we only really had to worry about keeping safe outside of our homes, our children now have access to so much social media that their safety in the home cannot be guaranteed.

This is why as parents, it's vital we keep up to date with the latest e-safety news because it's a fast paced, and ever changing world. There are some things that will remain the same though, and which you should speak to your child about on a regular basis if they are going online, regardless of their age.

1) Keep your accounts private and have your location set to off. Big issues with location on Snapchat, anyone can see where you are. Turn it off.

2) Never add anyone you do not personally know, even if it is a friend of a friend. If you haven't met them in real life they have no place in your online life.

3) Never ever give out your password, not even to your best friend in the whole world. What's the worst that can happen? Someone could go into your account and cause a whole lot of trouble for you.

4) Photos. Be careful what you share. Once you've put it on the World Wide Web it is there forever. Which leads us nicely to...

5) Never ever ever share photos that are inappropriate and never ever be pressured into doing so. If someone asks you to do anything online you are not comfortable with, report them, block them and tell an adult.

6) Do not give out any personal details, phone numbers, address etc. Anything someone could use to locate you off line. Don't share it.

7) Never arrange to meet anyone you met online (refer back to number 2). People can be very deceptive online, very easily. You can never 100% know to whom you're speaking.

8) If you are being bullied online, screen shot the messages, block them and speak to a trusted adult.

This list could well go on an on, but these are the things I go over regularly with my girls. It works. We had an incident a couple of years ago when someone approached my eldest and some of her friends online. Because we talk about it at home, and it's discussed regularly at school they knew what to do. She didn't come to me, but she did go to her pastoral support team at school and they in turn contacted the parents. I dread to think what might have happened if they weren't so clued up on the dangers of the online world. Thankfully, they did.

Further reading for parents:

internet matters.org

NSPCC Online Safety

Why I Love Twitter!

Before I entered the weird and wonderful world of blogging, I was a lover of Facebook. I liked it, it was easy to use, easy to connect with people and well, no character limitations on status updates. However, I have changed my mind.

For me, Twitter is the primary social media channel for blogging. With my personal Twitter account I found the character limitation a real bore, but with the blog account, no issue whatsoever, or perhaps I have just got used to it. Who knows? I haven't done a huge amount to grow my following on social media yet, but even so, I find Twitter much easier to grow than Facebook.

My main reason for loving Twitter so much though, is the fabulous sense of community. Unlike Facebook, people actually interact with one another regularly. OK, it's possible it's mainly us bloggers, holed up in our homes neglecting our blogs and having a good old natter instead. I put my hand up to that one. And yes, we are the ones who leave the room for a couple of minutes and come back to find the best part of 100 notifications. We clearly chat too much!

I'm not complaining though. Not at all, it's what I love, and if I'm honest, over the past few weeks it's what has kept me going. Having that sense of community. Knowing that there are people online at almost every hour of the day, has been a lifeline.

It's a place where I finally feel like I belong and people genuinely understand. OK it's possible they don't understand my crazy, sometimes random sense of humour, but they certainly understand the struggles I face with my mental health and the support I have received has been very much appreciated. They seem to understand the best way to deal with me is by using humour. No matter how low I may be feeling, after a couple of gif's I've forgotten about being sad. I've forgotten about feeling lonely and I'm chatting away to a bunch of crazy ladies (and the odd gent) as though we're all sat in the same room drinking tea and eating cake.

Sometimes, I think it's a real shame that we are scattered far and wide, but it may be a blessing; I know there are one or two bloggers whom, if we lived in close proximity, I for one would never get any work done and far too much cake would be consumed.

So, what then is the point of this slightly random and disjointed post? Well, it is essentially a great big thank you and a virtual hug to my fellow bloggers on Twitter. Thank you for being there, thank you for being crazy daisies, thank you for making me laugh and for laughing at me. You're all fabulous!