But I Smile Anyway…

Have you heard of this film?

I haven’t but don’t be surprised, I seem to wallow in classics, and kids movies most of the time so I miss great new releases and catch them up when they are deemed classic!

Anyway, back to the review in hand. I was browsing the Sky Plus On Demand service and this was on so I thought why not, and I am glad I did.

A film revolving around the online world, social media, gaming and technology and RL (real life).

It showed the amount of interaction people had via devices, rather than face to face, and how you could go from being innocent, and think you’re helping, to being controlling, and losing your child’s respect.

There was a mum who wanted to be an actress, but never did, who took over her child’s ambitions, and set up a seemingly innocent website of her girl, which ended up getting exploited, and the big message there was that whatever you put online is there forever, you might shut down an account or site, but all it takes is one download onto someone else’s device for something you posted to come back to you…

There was the mum who was so overprotective that, though she let her child use the various social media sites, and a mobile, she had the whole set tracked, and she would ‘clean’ her girl’s activity daily… a tad over the top… but I can understand to an extent why she felt the need…

And her daughter who was fed up of being spied on by her mum…

Then you had the boy who lost all interest in RL and gave up a successful football career to start gaming, and his interactions and thoughts became dark…

The girl who looked to the Thinspiration sites to lose weight so she could attract the popular boy…

The couple who were in a stale relationship, and they both found pleasure via an online route, that became very much real..

Then their son, who from a young age was so used to looking at porn, that when the time came for him to actually put his knowledge into practice, couldn’t do anything as his over exposure to inappropriate sexual content had retarded his ability to react normally to a girl of his own age.

It all made me think… it really made me think about my children, and what they see, or what they might see/do on the internet, when they are given more freedom.  I guess to some extent we are lucky.  As parents in this day and age, we probably are more au fait with what is on the net, and how things work, but when we were younger, our parents probably wouldn’t have had a clue.

It is our responsibility to educate our kids as to what is right and wrong, what is appropriate or inappropriate, and also to get their trust so they don’t feel we are snooping, but that they are able to happily come to us with questions, and to check whether things are actually ok.

My children are young, but they are growing up. I have a 10 year old who, at the moment, still thinks girls smell, but that wont last for long, he’ll be in secondary school before you know it, and exposed to all sorts that we can’t control, so it’s up to us to make sure he understands what is ok, and  what isn’t.

I do recommend watching it, it will make the cogs in your mind turn a little harder, and probably make you wonder what your kids are watching/doing/who they are talking to straight away!