Taking care of what teens learn online

SUZANNE BELLING

But he says there was also a reluctance to talk about it in the Jewish faith – particularly among the frum. Having worked with the community, he says: “They have not been well-informed and, when typing into the Internet search engines, tend to use words they know like ‘rape’, which gave them the wrong picture and violent and sadistic material.”

How did they go from being so sheltered to what they see online? “The only things they knew about were ‘spilling the seed’, which they had heard of.

“They are youngsters with raging hormones and are searching for dark things, as opposed to the austere sexual practices of their fathers. In religious circles, this was a challenge to normal sexual development.

“They see these on the Internet and think about acting them out.”

Similarly, in a religious school, a girl happened to be in an area where the boys congregated. The boys touched her, with the idea in mind that “women are there to tempt us… It was up to women to stop men. This was the rationalisation for their behaviour.

“They think that when women are around, men cannot control themselves.”

There had been several well-publicised cases involving doctors and millionaires, “but somewhere there seems to be secrecy surrounding discussing it”.

Lamprecht said the world had defaulted sex information to the Internet. “You can type in the word ‘music’ and unintentionally be exposed to sex and pornography.”

Teenagers had “porridge and sludge” for brains. “It is like driving an unlicensed Ferrari without brakes. By the time children come to see me, they are in trouble.”

Lamprecht said children should only be able to access technology if parents could log into the way their kids were thinking. “In previous days we had diaries and they were private. Now anyone can log into anything.”

Parents should avail themselves of Kidlogger and monitor what their children are doing on the Internet.

Lamprecht is completing an MSc in neurodevelopment at Wits in the departments of paediatrics and pathology within the criminal justice system.

He has worked in the NPO field for 25 years and runs groups for inner-city children, children in conflict with the law, children with autism and psychiatric challenges.

Apart from being a director of Fight with Insight – the Hillbrow Boxing re-Evolution Life Gym at the Children’s Memorial Institute, he convenes the Johannesburg Advocacy Forum; supervises Women and Men Against Child Abuse in the Alexandra Victim Empowerment Programme and is director of the SA Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse. He also consults on abused babies.