It is difficult enough for young people to grow up and face adversity in a variety of situations each day at school, but to deal with other issues in the cyber world can even be more devastating. The creation of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social networking websites has been an excellent tool used to reconnect and stay in contact with other people and is also a useful way to self-promote one’s talents and/or products and services. However, it can become a destructive vehicle that can ruin many people’s lives and relationships between people whether it’s friends, family members, spouses, or complete strangers. Private and potentially hurtful information (true or false) can be passed and spread in a moment’s notice to countless people which can adversely affect an individual or a group of people.
Over the years, there have been many reported and unreported incidents involving Internet crimes against children. NBC Dateline has shown online solicitation sex crimes take place where online predators with fake profiles meet underage children on social networking websites and/or blogging sites. The real problems are not the websites themselves, but rather the unsupervised conversations that are taking place in accordance with a limited amount of cyber patrol.
The Internet is a vast medium with infinite amount of possibilities for both helpful and hurtful information to permeate those that peruse it. Parents need to become educated on these 21st century issues that are a big part of a child’s life. Many children have a profile page setup on one or more social networking websites and spend an exorbitant amount of time chatting, writing posts, and uploading pictures and videos.
How can parents and other adults best protect a child from these potential lurking dangers? The clear cut answer seems simple: A child is not allowed to sign up and be on these websites. Consequently, the repercussions that many students face at school if they are “not connected” with the in crowd can be damaging to their self-esteem for many years. How do adults handle this issue taking into account the whole perspective? Where is the balance for today’s generation of kids?
Here are some tips to keep a child safe when using social networking websites:
• Keep the Internet out of a child’s bedroom. If a computer is in the house, position it in a centrally located area where parents can walk by to monitor the activities.
• Purchase parental control software to protect children from inappropriate content on the Internet. There are also free website blocking downloads that are available that remove undesired websites from a child’s view and prevent a child from spending a long time in chat rooms.
• Limit television/computer time to a certain amount each day and if it becomes a problem, don’t hesitate to take away those privileges.
• Request to be a child’s friend on that social networking websites.
• Know your child’s password for his/her profile page on that website.
• Encourage a child to engage in other activities and get involved in extracurricular clubs/activities after school (sports, music, the arts, etc.).