The computer has become as central to the American household as the television. If my wife and I pose a question to which neither of us can answer, my children chime in to go and check on Google. Unlike the row of Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedias that held the many answers that I asked for as a child, our children can search for the big picture questions right down to tomorrow's weather in less time than it took me to get a stool to take down a single volume off the shelf. Progress is simply amazing!
Yet with that ease and simplicity of use that the internet has brought our children, so to has it become easier for others to take advantage and exploit our children's innocence. When my son followed banners away from Hotwheels to the video game site, he just kept looking for cool and interesting pictures. A scary thought! Now we have new rules that if you leave a web page, you have to tell mommy and daddy. This obviously won't last forever. As soon as this process becomes cumbersome for wither of us, it will be obsolete. Even though it will be cumbersome, it will not relieve me of my duty as a responsible parent to monitor and protect my children from the dangers of the world wide web.
Although some may say that the statistics present an improbable threat to any individual persons child, I cannot justify any number small enough not to take measures to protect my child. We are given the enormous and sometimes overwhelming responsibility of protecting and ensuring the best possible quality of life for our children. As certain as we would not put an adult movie in the DVD player for our children to watch, we should not plead ignorance to the exploits available to all internet users. Parental monitoring of internet traffic is simply a new tool to add to your bag of tricks.
You are not spying on your kids! Spying implies subversive tactics to acquire information unknown to the person you are watching. This doesn't have to be the case. Let everyone in the family know that you are monitoring all internet activities. Let your children know why you monitoring the web. Depending on the ages of your children, the response will be drastically different. Some kids will be surprised that you are not already monitoring them. Others will throw the book at you pleading invasion of privacy. Either reaction should not raise alarm for the parent. For both scenarios, it is the responsibility of the parent to let the child know exactly why monitoring is necessary and the limitations that the parent wishes to place on the monitoring. The parent should invite this event as a perfect opportunity to open the lines of communication. Reassure your child that you are monitoring them for their own safety. Establish rules that enable mutual trust. If you begin to nit-pick every conversation your child is having with their friends rather than taking the big picture approach, you may encourage a distrustful relationship with your child.
Even if you want to be your child's best friend, monitoring their internet activity is simply a new responsibility added to parenting today. Their right to privacy is superseded by your right to ensure your child's safety. Take the opportunity to be more in touch with your child's life. The reality is that you don't want to know all the details, but you want to be able to catch the dangers and pitfalls of social networking on the internet. You want to be able to give your child freedoms without having to worry about them getting taken advantage of. You want them to learn the small lessons of life, not the harsh and sometimes cruel realities. That is why knowing what your kids are up to IS YOUR BUSINESS!
For additional information of monitoring your childs activity on the internet, as well as software recommendations, check out Monitoring Your Child's Internet Activity, provided on my lens.
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