Keeping Kids Safe Online and In their Digital World: Tools for Parents
Guest Blog by Angel McGovern of DigitalSafety4Kids.com
Our kids are connected to the internet everywhere and all the time. Too many of our children are bullied online or via their mobile phones. Out of 37 million kids between the ages of 9 and 17, 80% own a cell phone. The latest statistics show that 56% of teens will be bullied online this year and only 1 in 4 will tell a trusted adult. Our teens and tweens are so mobile, on average they send 1 text every 9 minutes their awake. 38% of teens will send a sext message. Their social world has changed from how, we as parents had our social network, we mainly conversed face to face. Since our children’s tools have changed due to technology, our parenting tools have not over the course of time. We parents need to Be Engaged and Act Now.
However, we do have tools that can help us bridge the gap between our teen/tweens digital world and us parents but utilizing a Parental Intelligence Software system. My preferred system notifies me only when something has gone “out of bounds”.
For example, you can receive daily or real time notifications of when your child has received a sexual solicitation via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or on their Blackberry, or Android enabled phone. Other types of notifications are threatening language, violence, and adult contacts. It is great to have our own intuition of when something hits our parent radar, but is it nice to have this tool in our grasp as well. It has prevented suicides and youth getting involved with drugs since it notifies the adult who set up the account. This tool has helped parents open those lines of communication with their child. In addition, this system provides a report of who the child has last added to their list of contacts on Facebook and their peak hours of usage. You can set the notifications that you are most concerned you. The best part of this system is that it is available to parents for FREE. Please visit www.digitalsafety4kids.com for more information on this free service.
I host workshops for parents to attend to learn more about Cyberbullying. If you are interested in hosting a workshop, please contact me via email at digitalsafety4kids@ymail.com.
Angel McGovern
Internet & Mobile Child Safety Advocate
www.digitalsafety4kids.com
