Our kids will use technology more than ever – it’s just how the human race is evolving. So how do we protect our kids?
Some parents are simply not aware of the various dangers lurking on the internet, and that the innocent looking device being used in their kids bedroom is actually a direct way for the entire internet to interact with your child. It’s the same when they are being bullied online – rather than leaving the issue in the school playground, because we are always connected – the problem extends to where-ever the device is located – including your home.
It’s important that you firstly understand some of the issues early on, and can deal with them one by one.
It can be a scary prospect for a parent today as we are increasingly saturated with news about cyber bullying, child predators, inappropriate online material such as graphical violence or pornography, as well as other forms of image abuse (revenge porn) and sex-ting. These are real concerns, as is the safety of our children on modern devices and everything connected technology.
But these devices are not going anywhere – and so we need to be smarter when it comes to helping our kids navigate safely in our digital world. Tthat means moving away from a fear based approach, towards one that helps our kids evolve their skills, behaviours and thinking so that they become not only safe, but happy and resilient users of digital connected technologies.
So what do other parents do to manage screen time?
Some parents let their young kids use the internet or online devices for several hours without any parental guidance or supervision in the evenings and weekends, but unfortunately it leaves their children exposed to a lot of things that they simply should see or experience at such a young age.
There are several key considerations, not limited to but including:
- Access to inappropriate material (violence, pornography etc)
- Cyber bullying
- Image misuse / abuse
- Too much screen time – how to control the craving
As well as other more common considerations that everyone needs to know about:
- Malware and viruses
- Not re-using the same passwords across multiple sites
- The importance of using multi-factor
Below are a number of useful links for additional material:
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An overview of image based abuse