How can we best teach our kids to be streetwise and safe when they’re online?

Question

Messaging, social networking and other internet services offer children and young people fantastic opportunities to express themselves, be creative and develop new skills. But kids can sometimes share too much information about themselves in order to be ‘cool’ online and people they communicate with may not be who they say they are. How do we get kids to take these risks seriously without taking the fun out of the internet?

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Answer 1

i don't think that sharing information about themselves would make them 'cool' - sharing an address or whatever doesn't give you kudos i wouldn't have thought.

parents need to ensure that they know what there child is doing, yes, you can use things like net nanny and those sorts of things but they aren't really any substitute for a parent sitting down with their child and using the computer together.

you don't mention how old the 'kids' are you're talking about, until children are at an age where they understand the risks associated with internet use they should not be left alone to roam the web freely.

it's a learning process as with anything else - you wouldn't let a young child out to wander around the streets on their own, first you teach them how to stop at the kerb, how to look for traffic, about stranger danger and when they're old enough and understand the dangers you let them go round the corner to the shop on their own (probably while spying on them!). it's the same with internet access - it's about parents being responsible.

Answer 2

I can remember years ago when we went to Saturday Morning Pictures and my Mum knew all about the 'strange' people that also went. The only thing that we were given was a 'hat pin' that we kept on our clothing and should a man try and touch us in the dark of the cinema, we would take the pin off our lapel and 'stab' his hand with it. We were made aware that there was a danger but we had not idea at the age of about ten exactly what that danger was! And I had my baby sister along with me to protect who is four years younger than me.

Kids grow up too fast these days. They have no real childhood in which to learn. They go from being an infant to being (or expected to be, at least) an adult, with all the knowledge that comes with it. Girls wear make-up at far too young an age. Sex education seems to start at about seven years old!

It is wrong to TEACH our kids to be 'streetwise.' It is something that they have to learn - and this can only be done through a proper 'growing up' cycle.

The internet can be a bad thing as well as good. Our young should not be sitting in front of a computer 'talking' to people, they should be out in the fresh air and really communicating! The internet for information is fine. The internet for communication is not good at all for the young! It probably isn't really good for adults, either!

If the kids really must use a computer for communication, then make sure that they are using email with people already known to them and their family.

Take a look at some of the abusive answers on Yahoo! This is a pretty safe site. If it can get that bad here, then I dread to think how bad it can get elsewhere!

Put kids where they belong - playing with Barbie dolls or tin soldiers! Play is a very valuable learning process.

Answer 3

I think far too often 'the internet' is seen as this dangerous other world. It's no different from other aspects of life and once people treat the web as such then there stops being 'a problem'.

My children are quite young so I don't let them go down the street to the shops on their own. I carefully supervise them when they play out etc .. The internet is no different.

I also don't think everyone on the internet is a baby eating pervert but as in other aspects of life I don't often randomly engage strangers/people in conversation. I always bin spam snail mail without reading it. I don't walk around with private information on display. Again the internet is no different other than there are more tools available to prevent unsolicited contact.

The internet like offline life has many tools but it is how people use them that is important. What I consider to be equally important is that people learn that how they conduct themselves should not differ if it is out playing in the street, in school or on the web. The same rules apply and should be enforced by the parents.

The internet is great but people need to act responsibly and as with every other aspect of life take responsibility for their actions.

Answer 4

There IS no black and white answer to this one i'm afraid.

You can't completely wrap a child in cotton wool, it just doesn't work. You can sit them down and seriously tell them of the dangers of things on the internet, but what more can you do?

Do you not let your child go to school in case the teacher is a peadophile? No.

Do you keep your child on a leash so nobody can pick them up and bundle them into the back of a car? No.

So can you limit access to the internet to a COMPLETELY safe level, without stripping out all of the rich and enthralling content which it has to offer? No.

This highlights the state of affairs in the UK perfectly at the moment, people are all to ready to ban something from use, but arn't ready to increase the level of education which goes into stopping problems happening in the first place!

When I was a kid, it was "Don't talk to strangers, and there was scaremongering in school through role play at some point for everyone in the school, we would be asked to carry out a task for a teacher and on doing so were approached by a shady looking fellow asking us to help bring something in from the car park.

Then if we aggreed, a member of staff would come over and explain to us EXACTLY what might have happened if that was't just an excersize, even down to the point that we may get taken away never to see our families again. But it worked. So maybe things like this should be extended to the world of computers and the internet?

Thanks for reading.

Answer 5

I believe that a child/minor needs to be taught the right way to present themselves OFFLINE as well as online.

I actually think that a child's (as in a parent's offspring and not a young person specifically) upbringing to protect themselves starts way sooner than their time on the internet.

We teach, do we not, that children should not go with strange folk, accept sweets or even speak to them?

Well- this is easily translated to the net: Do NOT speak to strangers. And EVERYONE on the net is a "virtual stranger" and so ought to have the same rule of thumb applied.

I have a 15 year old and this young person is currently exploring music as a vocation in a serious fashion. This makes my child a LOT more vulnerable to the baser elements of the internet "community" and the only this is going to work in my child's favour is if we agree that I am part of this reaching out.

So- my child has supervised (in the same room in full view of me all times) access and the freedom to explore while remembering the rules of the game:

Caution first and foremost.

Is it draconian? Perhaps. But the child is OK with it (honestly) and so am I. It works for US.

Otherwise, as an ex-moderator for a large gaming company's forum I would say:

"Treat everyone as though they were strangers- as though you had walked into a room of people you have never seen before".

This works well- because it awakens the natural preservation instinct in the person and as such ensures they are more cautious and circumspect about their "communication". It worked so well it was written into forum rules.

Answer 6

Yeah ! About time we got one of these questions. Great stuff ! I heard someone say once that there are so many people who are on the internet - how do we know who is real anymore ?

It is crucial that any strategy to make kids savvy about safe internet use is that we don't talk down to them, we engage their interest, they pick up skills which they appreciate, ( because their confidence are boosted and they have a lot of fun at the same time. (The fun bit should be seen as just as important as the acquisition of skills, because that will encourage habit formation.)

One idea, ( you may well have it on your list already,) is to create a computer simulated game. The game presents real-life situations that have occured. ( Every situation should have a bio that they can refer to and compare their actions with real people as well as a reality check to see when and how things really happen or don't happen.)
Now, the internet is about making choices, right ? : When you are seaching for something, what are the best key words to punch in ? How does one website compare with another ? Is this person for real ? et.al Players choose a situation from a list that they feel is close to their own interests and needs or it might just sound interesting. They are given a finite number of choices of actions which unfortunately isn't what always happens in the real cyber world. ( Did I just say that ?) Now with every decision, as in life, there is a consequence of that decision. Such consequences occur because there is a cause/effect relationship and others occur because of chance. Consequences may be favourable or not - serious or trivial.Both senarios are programmed into the game. Levels are attained by successful, i.e. safe actions.

However, as a rider to this suggestion : The game should be designed for different age levels so that consequences not only reflect needs and interests but the age of the user. Issues raised in the game should relate to their needs and wants but formatted in such a way that the activities are appropriate to the maturity of the user.

Another idea is a kind of helpline that young people can access in order to make informed decisions. The cyberworld can be pretty lonely and even scary. Imagine being a child and multiply the intensity of the feeling by any factor. The helpline would provide accurate, easy to understand information and advice and it would be confidential. ( Who in their right mind would ask some of the questions we'd like to ask, if it got back to our parents ! - or someone else that knows us.) Sporting, musical, ( or whatever,) celebrities would openly openly sponsor your organization and goals to lend to your clients, the kind of credibility they would trust.

Hope that helped. Good luck with this. It's vital that you get to the growing number of younger users of internet services before the dark side does.

Answer 7

Streetwise Computers

Answer 8

We as parents need to be involved and monitor what they do, as well as making them aware of the issues and implications of what they do on the internet. There is a brilliant team in america which is called the Isafe organisation, this has tutorials and explains a lot of stuff to parents in relation to the internet and also gives examples of situations that have arisen in the past, some sad and it also shows parents how easy it is for a child to be located by a number of different methods.
I have shown both of my children the examples on this site and we have discussed the issues with each other, i am happy that they are educated now and understand the implications of entering personal info over the internet.
Also there is a program named K9 web protection which is a very good free parental control application which allows you to customise how it works and gives you a bit more peace of mind.
I think most importantly any computer that a child is using should be situated where you as parent's can monitor it(living room) where you can check / take an interest whenever you wish to.
We have to protect the children and not just give them access to the internet and think how nice it is not to be disturbed by them!, i work on the principle that if they are quiet, they are probably up to no good.

Answer 9

I think the only possible way is for parents to take control of the matter and monitor the childs access. For teenagers this is even more harder, as most parents dont want to invade their teens personal privacy.

Perhaps a 20 minute password should be introduced, so that each time the parent would have to enter personal details so it will enable kids to play the net.

However, this may not stop criminals getting the better of your child online. If i could i would reinforce so that pedophiles are totally banned from internet access, however that would probeley infringe their human rights.

Answer 10

I think the starting point is for parents to start taking the internet's social side more seriously, there are far too many who just brush it off as just a white/black/grey box in the corner the kids use. I can't see any child taking advice from an adult who hasn't got a clue what they are on about, children aren't as clueless or short sighted as quite a few adults seem to think and your average 8 to 14 year old fully understands that mum and dad doesn't know the first thing about computers.