chain mail and children

Morporkian

Mostly, these are harmless and kids have great fun sending them (I must admit, I did for a while when I was at school, but usually just the fun/silly ones that then "threatened with death, bad luck, losing a love" etc at the very end) and/or annoying their friends.
Some of my friends still do it now and I just ignore them.

As for not having to worry about it when you were a child, I know I did - even before the email form. We had it through the normal mail. Again, it was something harmless and we chose to do it. Gave us something to do that dreaded last week of summer holidays that is kind of boring! haha (And this was when I was about 10?)

Glad that it is being talked about though and hopefully for those children/parents who take the chain mail to heart, it will help ease them a bit. Then the kids can just decide amongst themselves whether or not they want to participate

jockettuk

i explained to my daughter when she was about 11 all about these chain letters and how they work etc.. she now laughs when she gets one .. ive also said to her if she gets a jokey one that she likes and wants to send to her friends that when she forwards it she deletes the bit at the bottom about sending to 10 mates in 10 mins etc..

this is what she has done and her friends have started doing the same so they get the fun part without all the stupid threats of sorts

pulliptears

jockettuk wrote: »

i explained to my daughter when she was about 11 all about these chain letters and how they work etc.. she now laughs when she gets one .. ive also said to her if she gets a jokey one that she likes and wants to send to her friends that when she forwards it she deletes the bit at the bottom about sending to 10 mates in 10 mins etc..

this is what she has done and her friends have started doing the same so they get the fun part without all the stupid threats of sorts

The best solution I feel. Seems little point in getting mad, or contacting other parents, the better way of dealing with it is educating your own.

sporedude

Before you go all guns blazing its worth noting that quite alot of chainmail is spread through an email virus, It infects the persons Email address lists and forwards it on, and on, and on, So its basicly going from one friends list to another, So it may not have been the boys fault.

MothballsWallet

sporedude - true, but then it becomes the computer owner's responsibility to secure their machine in case of future attacks like this (in my book anyway), and also what happens when the next generation viruses come along that use peoples' computers in "bot nets" to break into and attack government or financial systems?

__TJ___2

spoke to boy in question, he had indeed sent it on because he was scared spoke to school abou it as ti has been doing the rounds for weeks ( the CC on the one we all got dated it in april and had about 400 email addys ) school have today sent out a letter to all parents and help an assembly with internet safety as the theme - all in one day! im impressed they have taken this stance, and no i didnt yell at the kid - felt like it but was restrained
kid has now had his account taken over by his parents and they will be monitoring incoming and outgoing mail ( with a big banner at the bottom saying so) yes he will be a bit embarrassed for a while but at least his friends will know not to send that stuff on to him again as his folkes will see it.

just hope my son can sleep tonight, have explained it is all just words, but he was very upset.

myrnahaz

I don't see how anyone can say these chain letters are ok - they're horrible things. Even the funny/jokey/fluffy ones are insidious. I had one last week asking me to answer 10 questions about my favorite things - and this from a colleague who I HAD thought was really sensible, but he asked that I send it to 10 other people and pleaded that I didn't break the chain because I'd be spoiling everyone's fun. This guy is nearly 60 years old. What on earth is fun about making 10 of my friends believe that I am a moron for sending them such rubbish.
I told him it was a load of tosh and not to send me any more (so now he thinks I'm a misery guts).
TJ's poor son is going to have trouble sleeping because of this - how can that be harmless?
Rant over.

sporedude

Wasnt really a death threat though, Just crap mail that should be filtered into the junk mail folder, along with adverts for viagra and the letters telling me a rich member of my family in south america has died and needs my bank details to send me 1 million dollars.