Web Safety is the New Sex Talk
May 31st, 2012 by Beth Blecherman, TechMama
When I was a teenager, my parents
dreaded the “birds and the bees” discussion, a tacit reminder that I was
getting older and needed guidance and warning of the adult road ahead. Fast
forward to 2012. Kids have access to multiple devices with browsers, providing
access to the Internet, where they are establishing permanent digital
identities. Facebook updates, Google+ postings and comments they make on
YouTube and other sites are all easily added together to form your child’s
growing (and morphing) presence in the digital world. And that information
isn’t just made available to advertisers, colleges and employees, but also to
would-be predators.
Guiding preteens and teens as they
leave footprints in the digital jungle can make a birds and bees conversation
seem easy by comparison. And because a child’s social media presence today
contributes directly to their face-to-face social life, it’s a necessary talk.
So, what should a parent say when delivering that “Internet Safety talk”?
Unfortunately, simply buying a book
and giving it to your child (as my parents and my in-laws did) to explain the
birds and bees is not going to do it. Today’s “Internet safety” talk needs to
start the moment their kid touches a device with a browser, and must extend
past the time they leave the house and live on their own. Central to this discussion
are three not-so-simple, but very important, steps.
Step
1: Get Educated
As a parent, the most important part
of helping your child with Internet safety is to spend the time to understand
it yourself. It’s just like the airplane safety card says: Parents are supposed
to put the oxygen masks on themselves first and then their kids. And regular
re-education is necessary because technology changes so quickly—and so does
Internet safety.
In just the last year, the tech
parenting game has changed, thanks to the growing ubiquity of the cloud.
Personal information is moving off the PC or smartphone and onto the Web, with
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google all pushing their own services. (Do your
kids do homework assignments on Google docs? Bingo!) That means kids (and
parents) are working, storing, viewing and sharing more personal, education and
work-related information online.
Because of this, parents should
review all the cloud services their family are using for the following:
1) User authentication so only
authorized users can access stored media
2) Is account information, such as
credit card number for paid services, kept “masked” or hidden from online
viewing?
3) Is there a backup plan included
in the services—or do you need to back up your own cloud files? The next step
is to remind your children that truly “private” conversations and media needs
to stay offline—no matter what service they are using (and especially any
online service).
To make your education more
challenging, the technology a parent needs to understand varies with the age of
the child and a child’s propensity to be “socially active.” The age of social
networking may start with texting, near age 13 (younger for many), then lead to
such social networks as Facebook and Google+. Parents claiming “I will never
permit my kid to be on a social network” are ostriches sticking their heads in
the sand. Starting in middle School, socializing goes online and kids will find
a way to join in, with or without their parents’ knowledge.
Key to your parental education is
learning the ever-evolving world of privacy settings. Luckily, most social
networking sites have family safety centers—such as Google Family safety,
Facebook Family Safety, Microsoft Safety and Security Center. Similarly, many
cellphone carriers (AT&T and Verizon Wireless) have child safety and
privacy centers. There are also general sites that help educate parents and
their kids on Internet safety, including ESRB, Common Sense Media,
NetSmartz.org, i-Safe.org and ConnectSafely.org.
Step
2: Have an Ongoing Dialogue
After parents educate themselves,
it’s time to start Internet safety discussions with your children. Then, make
that talk a regular habit.
Until recently, it has been
relatively easy to set up automated Internet controls and keep your kids safe
without directly involving the kids. But with today’s cloud trend, the best
Internet controls are educating the kids and having regular open dialogue. This
includes honest conversations about cyberbullying, online etiquette, virus
prevention and even browser safety. Don’t leave out the uncomfortable details,
because every kid, at one point or another, will be faced with these difficult
situations.
In our house, we follow a philosophy
to discuss real-life situations before they happen. One way or another, we
believe our children will be on the receiving end of inappropriate online
behavior and need to have the awareness and skills to deal with it.
When my tween son starting using his
first smartphone, we explained the conduct and online etiquette we expected him
to demonstrate in great detail and the consequences if these rules were broken.
Together, we discussed a recent news story of a girl “sexting” a topless
picture of herself to one friend who then forwarded the photo to other friends.
The picture was soon all around the school. No one intended to cause harm, but
sadly, the young girl ended up committing suicide and the boys who shared that
picture were arrested for distributing child pornography.
From these talks, my tween understands
the serious nature of taking and sharing pictures. He also views every picture,
video and comment as something his future college recruiter, future boss or the
police may see.
Step
3: Be Open to Feedback
Ultimately, kids need to be
educated, but also should participate in setting family online rules and
etiquette. Have an open system where you and your child are included in each
other’s social networks to help monitor and educate. And, yes, pick your
battles. Bite your lip and stay out of “commenting” or “parenting” on the
social stream where your kid’s friends can see. Parenting is best done
privately and offline. A friend who responded negatively online to her niece’s
proud Facebook post of her new lip tattoo was quickly “defriended.”
Be open to feedback from your kids,
because even Mom and Dad may need to be reminded sometimes to not share that
silly picture of your child on Facebook, no matter how cute it may be. Discuss
with your kids (offline, of course) the addicting nature of the Internet so
they can eventually self-police their online social life. We tried telling our
tween to wait until marriage, or at least college, to post pictures of himself
with girls. He didn’t buy it.
