Keeping Children Safe Online
Our children are members of the Information Age, where knowledge, good and bad, is accessible at the touch of a button. And even when we feel befuddled by all the complexities of technology, our adult responsibility is to ensure our children’s safety on the Internet.
Predators are not the only online threat. Parents need to work diligently to ensure a child’s digital life is an asset to her whole life and not a liability. Marsali Hancock, president of iKeepSafe.org a site dedicated to keeping children protected online, says, “How can I help my child be an ethical, responsible and resilient cyber citizen so they can get the best experience from digital products?”
The Internet Keep Safe Coalition identifies three main online dangers. The first is inappropriate contact—with whom your children are connected. A dangerous contact could be a predator, a hacker or a Web site promoting harmful behaviors such as hate, eating disorders or suicide.
The second danger is inappropriate content, including what your children view, what they post and how this affects their sense of well-being. The third is inappropriate conduct--online behavior abusive of the responsibility of being a member of the global community.
Many parents think only of the first danger when they hear “internet safety” – horror stories of predators hiding behind the mask of kid-friendly screen names. Sometimes, however, children can be as much of a danger to themselves online as a stranger could be.
“It’s important to recognize everything your child posts now can have a potential impact on future academic and employment activities,” says Hancock. “Things they think are funny communication for friends now, will show up later. What is posted on the Web is always public and can never be fully removed.”
Hancock says when she was young, kids could be kids and make mistakes without reaping the consequences later in life. With increasingly viral online lives, children today leave behind a trail of their thoughts, feelings and photos that can be accessed by anyone in the world at anytime in the future.
“The most important thing is to communicate with your children and keep current with what they do online,” says Hancock. “Talk to your children about the digital life…. If you listen to kids, they are always coaching each other about technology. It’s part of their conversation and adults can enter it.”
Hancock says it’s important to remember that checking up is not spying. Spying, she says, is sticking yourself into a private conversation. Because the Internet is a public forum, as you keep tabs on your children’s activities, you remind them that what they do online is tagged, tracked and followed by an enormous amount of traffic.
“Checking up gives you the opportunity to intervene and save a life or spare one of hardship,” says Hancock. “In areas of depression, suicide and self-abusing behaviors, kids leave digital footprints and bread crumbs all over that provide a unique place for intervention never possible before the digital environment.”
If you do find your child has fallen prey to one of the online environment dangers, the first thing to remember is to remain calm and not close off communication channels. Remember that you are the one providing your child with the Internet, so you have the ability to be in control.