Internet Safety: it's Time To Learn
What Your Children Know
In order to protect children,
parents and teachers need to learn about the technology they are using, advises
headmaster and 'tech’ mentor Richard Follett.
By Richard Follett
7:00AM BST 17 Oct 2013 - telegraph.co.uk
Judith Woods found out her young children had seen online
porn
I am sure we can all remember
childhood temptations to push the boundaries of curiosity. Such innocent rites
of passage have continued through the ages, with parents guiding, correcting
and advising from a position of experience.
But today’s parents are placed in
the terrifying position of being almost entirely unable to protect their loved
ones from potential harm.
The explosion of technology and, in
particular, social media, that occupies a huge proportion of the lives of
teenagers, is unprecedented. Never before have parents known so little about
the mistakes their children are making on a daily basis, or been less educated
about the perils and pitfalls they face, or less able to offer any wisdom or
guidance.
As a result, parents are forced to
seek cures rather than preventions, picking up the pieces rather than
preventing the damage in the first place. Today’s parents have realised that
merely to ban a child from using social media raises the barrier of distrust,
forcing children into a position of dishonesty, such is the power of their
addiction to the drug of technology.
Charities, schools and organisations
are fighting back and have made significant progress over the past five years
in providing education for children of all ages to help protect them while
using online technology. Leading the way is CEOP, the Child Exploitation and
Online Protection Centre, who adopt a “Prevent, Protect, Pursue” approach.
21 Jun 2013
CEOP see its role as education, and
bringing offenders to justice. CEOP, which is now attached to the newly formed
National Crime Agency has, since 2006, trained more than 13,000 adults and
their resources have been seen by some 2.5 million children.
In addition, direct CEOP work has
led to more than 1,600 arrests of online predators. While the statistics
provided by CEOP and other excellent organisations are encouraging, the problem
evolves as quickly as the technology is improving.
A recent study by the NSPCC
demonstrates a shift from online predators who are unknown, to online
contemporaries who are often known to those they victimise. The NSPCC states:
“The focus of campaigns now needs to shift towards reducing the risk from their
peers.”
As a headmaster, I would love to
have a magic button which could automatically filter adult content and block
comments which upset others. But websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm are
no different from many aspects of society in their ability to cause harm if access
to them is unmoderated by parents. We have seen in the past few months some
horrific examples of children reaching such a state of despair that they take
their own lives, a hideous reminder of the menace of cyberbullying. This trend
in itself, where children and adults may hide behind the veil of anonymity to
cause long-term damage to others, evolves as quickly as the latest social media
app hits the web.
I have met many parents who object
to these sites, who are none the less happy to allow their children to watch
certificate 12 and above films at a much younger age, and who knowingly turn a
blind eye to computer games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, which
have just as great a potential for harm or desensitisation. But the NSPCC
believes that the primary technology-related threat to children is
technology-mediated sexual pressure from their peers. Central to all of this is
the alarming growth in the culture of “sexting”, the practice of sending
explicit images (generally of the sender) by mobile phone to another person.
So what, if anything, can be done?
The secret is as old as any teenage parental dilemma, and ironically it returns
parents to the cause of the problem: communication. As the methods of
communication have evolved and children are in danger of becoming increasingly
less familiar with face-to-face conversation, the importance of parents talking
to children openly can only pay dividends.
Engaging in open discussion and
showing a consistent interest in their patterns of behaviour is a good start.
So too are firm boundaries from the outset. Ensuring that laptops are not used
in bedrooms, preventing mobile phone and internet access late in the evening
(and especially keeping such devices away from children at night-time) will all
help reduce the risk.
There are many schools of thought on
the issue, ranging from the trusting parent who has a close relationship with
their child and sees little need for formal regulation, to the anxious and
perhaps ultra-protective parent who refuses to allow any technology into the
household. There is strong research evidence supporting the view that parents
who take an authoritative (but not authoritarian) stance will have children who
are less affected than those who leave the child to make their own decisions.
We also need to consider what
additional training parents might need to guide their children safely through
such critical years. Children are desperate for boundaries and the frequent
cries for help are ample evidence of this. I am yet to meet a parent who is
happy about their child spending several hours every day using a mobile phone,
tablet or computer, but few seem to have the confidence to enforce what they
know to be sensible behaviour. Often parents simply don’t know where or how to
start.
But there are organisations trying
to help. The Parent Zone, established in 2005, is now at a stage of development
where it is training PitDA (Parenting in the Digital Age) facilitators to
deliver education specifically to support parents. Its approach is an astute
one, offering suggestions and guidance that each parent can tailor to their
family situation, rather than a “one size fits all” strategy.
Many believe that on this topic the
triangle between school, pupils and parents has rotated, with the children
sitting on high and their powerless parents and teachers marooned underneath,
but this should not and need not be the case.
These challenges require a firm
stance and — as with so much of parenthood and teaching — consistency is vital.
The consequences of failing to do this for our children are clear to see.
An alarming statistic recently
suggested that at the current rate, by the time our children’s generation reach
80 years of age, they will have spent 25 per cent of their lives in front of a
screen for recreation purposes. If that prospect is not enough to spur us as
parents and teachers into action, we deserve every problem we get.
Richard Follett is headmaster of Vinehall Preparatory School
in East Sussex, Ambassador for CEOP, a PitDA Facilitator and Education Advisor
for the CyberSmile Foundation.
============================================== For a great satire on email, please see the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zwscoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618
===============================================
Good Netiquette And A Green Internet To All!
Special Bulletin - My just released book,
"You're Hired. Super Charge our Email Skills in 60 Minutes! (And Get That Job...)
is now on sales at Amazon.com
Great Reasons for Purchasing Netiquette IQ
·
Get more
email opens. Improve 100% or more.
·
Receive
more responses, interviews, appointments, prospects and sales.
·
Be better
understood.
·
Eliminate
indecision.
·
Avoid
being spammed 100% or more.
·
Have
recipient finish reading your email content.
·
Save time
by reducing questions.
·
Increase
your level of clarity.
·
Improve
you time management with your email.
·
Have
quick access to a wealth of relevant email information.
Enjoy
most of what you need for email in a single book.
=================================
**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IPmanagement (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:
www.tabularosa.net
==================================================
Another Special Announcement - Tune in to my radio interview, on Rider University's station, www.1077thebronc.com I discuss my recent book, above on "Your Career Is Calling", hosted by Wanda Ellett.
In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ
has a website with great
assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the
premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to
Improve,
Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super
Charge
Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” has just been
published and will be followed by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for
young people. You can view my
profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and PSG of Mercer County, NJ.
I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems,
a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email,
network management software, security products and professional
services. Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.
Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.
=============================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment