Organizers of Safer Internet Day pointed out that our offline and online worlds are strongly connected. People share the happenings in their lives through Facebook and Twitter. Families use Skype to communicate with relatives and friends living abroad. Children do research for school projects online and online gaming grows more popular every month.
Many kids are amazingly tech savvy and can teach their parents how to use new technologies. This is something that parents should encourage because it's important to understand how your children are using technology. The safest way for children to discover all the digital world has to offer is with their parents by their side.
To mark Safer Internet Day, Yahoo! Maktoob Research canvassed more than 580 parents of children aged 2-17 years across the Middle East region about Internet safety. The research found that more than 68 percent of parents surveyed did not feel that they were best placed to teach children about online safety, with the majority believing their child would learn more about Internet safety from their peers or school.
When it comes to how much parents feel that schools need to dedicate to the subject, 51 percent of those surveyed believe online safety should be an ongoing discussion throughout the school year. This percentage was higher for parents of kids between 14-17 years, which showed 66 percent believing that the topic needs to be consistently addressed at schools.
“We know that parents are aware of the importance of online safety, but sometimes the lack of knowledge or tools prevents them from being able to take a more active role on the matter. This is why at Yahoo! Maktoob, we have introduced a special online resource called Yahoo! Safety Oasis. A number of schools and educational initiatives have also integrated Yahoo! Safety Oasis into their programs because of the understanding of the important role they play in raising awareness,” said Andy Abbar, head of Global and Regional Product Management, Yahoo! Middle East.
Through attractive online “edu-tainment” activities offered in Arabic and English, Yahoo! Safety Oasis (http://esafe.yahoo.com/) educates children about how to properly surf the Net and protect their personal privacy. It also focuses on increasing parental knowledge of Internet safety and supports those in the field of education to provide resources and training for youth engagement.
Abbar recommends a simple three-point plan to parents, which if followed, will enhance any family's online safety.
Keep current with the technology your children use. Parents don't have to be experts in digital technology, but a little understanding goes a long way toward keeping children safer online.
Keep communicating with children about everything they experience on the Internet. Know their slang. Don't be reticent to ask how and why a child is using specific technology resources.
Keep checking children's Internet activity. Let children know that their technology use will be monitored. Children need to understand that the Internet is a public forum and never truly private. Online activities contribute to establishing a digital reputation. Parents should help children develop an online reputation that is an asset rather than a liability.
Too many parents want to be friends with their kids online, rather than remembering that the Internet is not a place that was created for children. Children under the age of 13 should not be using social networking sites such as Facebook, which were created for adults. It's common for adults to make mistakes in distributing photographs and personal data through social networks. Children lack the decision making ability to understand the consequences of inappropriate information sharing and in fact the terms of use at social networking sites make it illegal for children to have accounts.
It can be very difficult to keep children off social networking sites due to intense peer pressure to participate in such activities, but it's a parent's duty to set limits. Parents who allow their young children to use adult social networking sites simply teach their offspring that it's all right to lie and cheat in order to gain your desires. Social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook are obligated by law to permanently delete the account of any underage user that they discover.
Parents need to understand all their children's online activities and set clear limits for how and when the Internet should be accessed. Remember too that even the safest sites can be hacked and that children can be vulnerable to receiving explicit content through direct messages — whether on a traditional computer or smartphone. Research in Europe showed that 56 percent of parents whose child received nasty or hurtful messages online were not aware of this.
In addition to the resources at http://esafe.yahoo.com, at www.saferinternetday.org/web/guest/insafe-resources there's a collection of games and activities that parents and teachers can share with children to start a discussion on the topic of Internet safety. Youngsters may seem to have all the answers when it comes to technology, but they still need to rely on their parents to educate them on the essentials in life.
