Society has evolved in the past century so much so that even our own childhood stories shock children.  The absence of cellular phones, much less texting and Internet access, even made its way into the Mini Pages section of the newspaper this past Thanksgiving, reminding children that kids didn’t always have these life staples.  But are they really meant to be staples for our children?  Are kids really better off having e-mail accounts, Facebook pages, and the ability to Twitter one another?  There is a lot of evidence that is clearly indicating that allowing children to have so much electronic freedom is dangerous and unnecessary.

In the military community, we are constantly struggling to find ways to stay in touch with one another since there are so many transitions- usually every two to four years.  Saying goodbye to friends is hard and, thankfully, the Internet and telephonic advancements made over the past twenty years have greatly enhanced the ability for military families to stay in touch.  At the same time, there have been some definite drawbacks to such an ease in communication.  Not just the military community is being affected adversely, either.  Children all over the world are facing more and more instances of cyber-bullying, access to information that isn’t developmentally appropriate, sexting, and suffering the effects of not being able to address envelopes, much less write a properly formatted letter.

So where do we draw the line?  Whose fault is it that we’ve allowed our children to be exposed to so much access to information and social interactions that they have very little experience navigating?  I think the answer is pretty clear:  While media inevitably invades even the most protective homes, the ultimate responsibility is up to the parents to limit exposure to electronic access.  Too much exposure greatly increases a child’s chance and opportunity be exposed to elements that they aren’t prepared to handle.

Here are some things to consider when deciding how much access your child has to electronic outlets such as cell phones, Internet access, and even the television- something in nearly house inAmerica:

-          Decide how much time your child/ren should have access to each electronic device and where those devices will be located.  Computers and televisions in family focused rooms are less likely to be used inappropriately and parents are able to more easily monitor which channels and what sites are being visited.

-          Talk to your child/ren about the dangers of each electronic resource separately.  As you talk to your child/ren, take the time to explain why/why not they are going to be used in your family and who gets to use them.  (For example, our children do not have cell phones.  They simply do not need them for our purposes.  My son asked about getting one and we sat him down and explained that cell phones are expensive, he is able to use the phone in our house any time he wants, and there are people out there who misuse cell phones and use them to send inappropriate texts and images to other people.  We explained that we wanted him to learn, through watching us, how to appropriately use a cell phone.)

-          While using filters and monitors, realize that they are not the end-all protection to keep your child/ren from accessing websites and channels that are off-limits to them.  Kids are pretty intelligent and can usually figure out ways to access the information they want some way.  Be sure to use this tool only as an added insurance that your child/ren are viewing material you have approved.

-          Several top child protection agencies agree that chat rooms should be altogether avoided by children.  The Pew Study, reported by JAMA, indicated that 89% of sexual solicitations of youth are made in chat rooms.  At the same time, the Girl Scout Research Institute reported that 86% of teenage girls could chat online without their parents’ knowledge.  With those kinds of statistics, it seems incredibly obvious that the risks outweigh any benefits.  Just ban chat rooms.

-          Educate yourselves, as parents, as to the terminology used by children and teenagers when using electronic forms of communication.  While the vast majority of us understand acronyms (after all, we are military!) which are used commonly online such as LOL (laugh out loud) and ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children indicated that 95% of parents didn’t recognize acronyms used regularly by teens to disguise and save time in their texting and online communications.  Phrases such as POS (parent over shoulder), P911 (parent alert), and A/S/L (age/sex/location) are the types of terms every parent should recognize and discuss with their children.

Kids need to have limits and parents need to make them.  Military kids face an added burden in that they want to maintain friendships made with kids all over the world and with the evolution of communication, that can be more of a reality than in the past.  However, parents should always be aware that kids know a lot more about computers than most adults, almost to their detriment.  Without careful monitoring and explaining the consequences of breaking house rules regarding communication policies, kids are more likely to encounter a multitude of negative and unnecessary interactions that could have been avoided.  Talk to your spouse and decide what is okay for your child/ren.  Use resources listed below to inform yourself of the risks, statistics, consequences, and recommendations that have been made by organizations created to protect the welfare of children.  Discuss your findings with your child/ren and come up with a plan that protects your child/ren and also makes your house a comfortable place that encourages conversation regarding topics that may come up about how to handle certain unexpected situations. 

Your ounce of prevention can save so much heartache and trouble for your kids.  In the end, protecting our children is one of the most important jobs we will have in this lifetime.  Take the time to protect your family.

Resources:

KidShield.com     http://kidshield.com/

NationalCenterfor Missing and Exploited Children     http://icmec.org/missingkids/servlet/PublicHomeServlet

Protectkids.com     http://protectkids.com/index.html

“Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″

http://judiciary.house.gov/news/Statement%20HR%201981.html

The Electronic Balance, 10.0 out of 10 based on 4 ratings

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.