Safer Internet For Kids

Due to my involvement in SaferInternetForKids.com and my own kid’s interest too, I troll a lot of sites about security and your child. Many of them are found on sites where many ‘geeks’ gather… I am rather ‘geeky’ after all. Extreme hot points are whether to install logging software or not or if a parent should ‘spy’ on their kids or not. But what I find kinda sad is how parents and non parents bicker.

Now I’m a reasonable person. I don’t like to tell people “You don’t understand” and like to see all points of view. But when it comes to parenting, sad to say it’s one thing I absolutely stand by. If you don’t have kids, your opinion on how to parent a child in cyber space does not count. You see, when I was single and carefree, I had a lot of opinions about parenting. Many of them to the tune of “That happened to me when I was young, I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen to my kids” and I’m not talking about serious
stuff here just everyday parent/kid stuff.

When my friends started having kids leaving me one of the few who were childless, I resented it deeply when they told me “You don’t have kids, you don’t understand”. The day after I gave birth to my firstborn I realized how wrong I was and how right my friends were. I understood but I didn’t empathize. There’s a difference because where empathy is concerned, you have a stake in the issue. A person without kids no matter how hard they try will never empathize because they do not have a stake in
the future of the child. That is the pivotal point. Much like people think it’s easy to be the boss until they actually become one.

So, I’ve decided to not let these non-parent opinions bother me too much. If you’ve been bothered by them too, join me. What matters most is what works for each of our families.

I knew this would happen before long. Whenever the media highlights a particular website and plasters warnings all over, creating a frenzy among parents, soon the kids leave. Parents who are just finding out about MySpace continue thinking it’s the space online to watch but their kids have already moved on to yet another ‘secret’ online community. The point?

First, we need to be reactive in our child’s lives not pro-active. There are thousands of MySpace type websites out there. It’s not MySpace that’s the problem. This is a classic case where communication with our kids is the best recourse.

Secondly, we no longer have the luxury of saying “I don’t understand computers” anymore. It is in our children’s best interest we more or less keep up with what’s in. Now I’m not saying to be on top of every new thing online but a general awareness of what’s going on and how to do a little bit of research goes a long way.