Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Raising Cyber Citizens

A new Facebook page was started--Raising Cyber Citizens.

This page is designed to be a discussion and knowledge exchange relating to raising kids--specifically tweens and teens in the internet age. Safety, ethics and best practices relating to this rapidly changing landscape.

Join the discussion by becoming a fan.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Teaching Our Kids to be Responsible Cyber Citizens

Social networking has taken root in virtually every aspect of society. What was not so long ago reserved for college students and geeks, has become a very mainstream and influential part of societies around the globe.

I very actively participate in a few different social networks and I love it. I am continually amazed by the power and the resources everyday individuals now have at their finger tips.

The moment that it truly clicked it my mind that the world has been forever and completely changed by social networks was during the early moments of the Iranian protests last year. I affectionately refer to the Iranian protests as the Twitter Revolution.

Think about it. People. Regular, everyday people have been able to severely weaken and apply consistent pressure to a totalitarian regime with cell phones, laptops and social networking accounts. AND the world has participated. Millions (myself included) occasionally change their Twitter location to Tehran to try to bog down the Iranian authorities working to block news from being transmitted. To me, this is thrilling. The power to change the world one tweet at a time…literally one person at a time.

But, this power brings tremendous responsibility and we must prepare our children for it. The internet is fantastic and exciting, but it is a loaded gun—a constantly changing loaded gun—that we must learn how to manage and we must teach our kids to navigate and to behave appropriately.

The world is a much different place than it was when we were kids. Really, the world is a much different place than it was five years ago and the pace of change will not slow, it will only accelerate.

Kids have aspirations of joining this excitement at younger and younger ages. I can understand this desire as I very much enjoy connecting with my friends, sharing information and ideas….all of the things that social networks offer. However, we must teach our children how to manage the raw power of the internet and this teaching is not incredibly easy given that most of us are at various stages of our own learning.

The following are some thoughts I would like to share for teaching our children to be smart and “healthy” cyber citizens.

General Cyber Safety
Many of us are worried about the scary person lurking in the shadows of the internet plotting to lure our children into dangerous situations. This is a real concern and we need to continue to educate and remind our children of these safety issues. I found some great resources for this education at http://www.onguardonline.gov/. In addition, many schools have started cyber safety education programs.

Monitoring System
Have a monitoring system and make your child aware that they are being monitored. Most kids will think twice if they know parents are watching. There are a lot of ways you can approach this—requiring that your early teen “friend” you on Facebook, monitoring software, require that your child walks you though their account(s) on a regular basis so that you can see their settings. These are just a few options and a combination approach is probably in order.

I know some parents log into their kid’s accounts and this approach may work for you. I have mixed feelings about this as kids need their privacy just as we do and I am generally not in favor of giving a child a privilege until I have solid reason to believe that they can be trusted—trusted both in terms of their knowledge/understanding of the issue and overall trustworthiness. But, this is a decision every parent must make for themselves.

It is important to discuss the rules and your monitoring practices with your child. Let them know the generalities (probably no need to get too specific) of what you will be doing and why as most kids respect, even if they do not like, boundaries and rules that are for their own good. Many kids will protest and try to sneak around seemingly irrational rules.

Cyberbullying and Sexting
These are very serious issues that require constant discussion. Schools and law enforcement bodies take these issues very, very seriously and your mild-mannered, well-behaved, good-hearted child could wind up embroiled in a big problem by contributing to a dialog (or even just passive participation) that we might consider a “kids will be kids” exchange.

Perhaps the schools and other authorities are overreacting in some cases. Perhaps they are responding appropriately. Either way, your child needs to be very educated on this issue, which means you must be educated.

Many schools are conducting programs to educate kids, but do not leave these conversations solely in the hands of your child’s school. As parents, we need to be educated and involved.

Positive Cyber Personality
Here is where I will present thoughts you may or may not have thought of. Developing a positive cyber personality is now critically important for finding a job, admission to college and other opportunities. Most of us do benefit or would benefit by having productive visibility on the internet. However, just as we strive to develop an image of trustworthiness via our in-person interactions, we must build a trustworthy cyber personality.

We should not misrepresent ourselves or present lies in cyberspace and we must teach our children that it is absolutely not OK to do so.

My intention here is not a high-handed moral lesson, but rather a very practical point of view. White lies or other fabrications, for the most part, usually go away. I am not not trying to justify lying of any sort, but most of us have fibbed with no consequence. The situation passes, the fib is gone.

The internet is an unforgiving record keeper. A lie, fib or misrepresentation on the internet does not go away…ever. Lies and misrepresentations in cyberspace can cause very, very big problems and can come back to haunt years later.

I know some parents are allowing their children to lie about their ages to open Facebook and other social networking accounts. It seems harmless enough…."Billy" is a responsible kid and he just wants to send notes to his classmates and play Farmville.

However, this is far from harmless.

If you allow your child to lie in order to open an account, your child will be starting their digital trail….their budding digital personality based on a lie. Not only do they have the practical reality of a lie next to their cyber name, recorded in cyberspace forever, you have taught them that it is acceptable to misrepresent themselves on the internet.

When most of us were kids, if we were caught lying we were sent to our rooms, grounded or other traditional disciplinary means. Today a lie on the internet is recorded forever to be potentially reviewed years later by college admissions departments, scholarship review boards, employers and other opportunity holders. The stakes are simply much higher today.

The New York Times Standard
“Would you feel comfortable with X running on the front page of tomorrow’s New York Times?” is a great standard. This is a standard that we must apply to ALL of our internet activity and we must teach it to our children. Most of us would be pretty horrified if a lie, a vulgar statement, an unjustly mean statement….ran on the front page of tomorrow morning’s newspaper.

“Everyone Else is Doing It”
Your child arguing that all of their friends are doing “it” and presenting a request as a seemingly small and harmless issue does not necessarily mean that they should be given permission. The reality is the internet (particularly social networking) is new to many and is constantly changing.

Many good, well-intentioned parents are making potentially bad decisions based on a lack of understanding.

The internet is a long-tail world. It is full of millions, billions and trillions of little things that add up to create something vast, dynamic, exciting and constantly changing. Something little may or may not be actually little.



Lack of knowledge should not paralyze us. We cannot lock our children in the proverbial closet because we don’t understand—we need to dig in and learn.

Because the stakes are higher today, we must educate ourselves. We must think through situations we never have confronted before and we must not automatically dismiss seemingly small cyber issues (while not overreacting either).

I think one good standard for internet behavior is to think about a person that you truly admire. A person that lives a life of goodness that you strive to achieve—maybe a religious leader, maybe a historical figure, maybe a highly respected friend or co-worker.

If you feel comfortable looking this person in the eye and telling them all information you have posted and all of the cyber actions you have taken, you and/or your child are probably O.K.

If there are things you have posted or cyber decisions that you have made that you don’t want to share with this esteemed person, think long and hard about the issue in question.

Today, the internet and technology in general is thrilling. I feel lucky to be living at this time in history to witness it all. But, it is challenging and we must prepare our children for a world in which cyber conduct and cyber reputation will be increasingly paramount.

Resources
Onguardonline.gov
WiredKids.org
5 Facebook Dangers: Perils That Have Nothing to Do With Internet Predators
WiredSafety.org