Monday, February 25, 2013

Schools and Parents Partnering to Stop Cyber Bullying


In Australia there is a trend for schools to share in the responsibility of what is happening after school because of cyber bullying.  From a recent report from the Australia Institute of Family Studies, it found schools and parents need to share in the responsibility of cyber bullying to educate and support kids.  The schools realize cyber bullying occurs more often after school since kids are so involved in the internet taking such an active role in social media and are exposed to collaborative online social culture which gives them access to all types information and maintaining friendships. 

When parents find out their child is being cyber bullied, they need to inform the school and ask for help. Since cyber bullying is inclined to happen 24 hours 7 days a week, it is important for parents’ involvement to help stop and prevent cyber bullying along with the partnership of the schools. 

What do you think, will parent and school partnerships help reduce or stop cyber-bullying?  

Monday, February 18, 2013

Internet at the Fingertips of Teens; Mobile Parental Controls can Help


Children, including teens, have so much at their fingertips today and one being the internet with the advancements of the smartphones. When I hear other parents say, “My kids don’t need any parental monitoring when on the internet they are just playing games,” or “It is fine to let me child have a social networking account, it helps them to find out what their friends are up to.” I often wonder, they must not be hearing about what is happening in the digital age.  In 2011, Shawn Henry, Executive Assistant Director at the FBI, estimated, that at any given time, there are 750,000 online child predators. And in January of 2012, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children placed the total number of sex offenders in the United States to be 747,408.

To me, these are very high numbers to let children go online without any parental monitoring. Knowing online predators use the social networking sites as their online playground and online predators fall across all socio-economic groups, children of all ages, including teens are just not mature enough to know how to handle tricky, manipulative online predators.  Children can gain access to the internet much easier and simpler today because of the smartphones. For the safety of your children, take a moment to talk to them and look into mobile parental controls that are for your child’s cell phone. My Mobile Watchdog  is here to help parents and children.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Facebook Inviting More Online Predators


Here we go with Facebook again. We all know, Facebook is one of the online playgrounds for online predators and cyber bullying, but regardless, Facebook is looking at whether to legally allow children under 13 to have an account.  According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is actively working on policies and controls aimed at allowing younger Facebook users. The article stated, “Mechanisms being tested include connecting children's accounts to their parents' and controls that would allow parents to decide whom their kids can "friend" and what applications they can use.”

But then, according to a Consumer Reports study published in May, there are already 5.6 million kids aged 12 and under with Facebook accounts, with 800,000 harassed or subjected to cyber bullying on the social network. And of these children the majority of parents knew they were on Facebook and did not talk with them about how to stay safe from online predators or cyber bullies nor monitored their Facebook activities.

Should Facebook change their policy to legally allow under 13 year olds to have an account so these parents do not have to lie about their children’s age?

Monday, February 4, 2013

Parental Controls on Social Networking


As a parent, do you have any parental controls on your teen’s social networking account? 

Does your teen know what to do if a stranger asks for his/her phone number on their social networking account?  Does your teen know he/she can block someone who is consistently harassing him/her? 

These are two basic topics that parents need to talk to their teen about before they sign up for a social networking account.  In the first place, teens should not be friends with anyone on social networking sites that they don’t know in real life. But by chance they are friends with a stranger, teens need to know; they do not give their phone number or any personal information to strangers and to block the strangers if they start getting harassed. 

Online predators are empowered by the cyber world to be whoever they want to satisfy their inclinations of wrongdoing. Our kids need to be armored with the knowledge of how to defend themselves if and when they encounter online predators. 

Does your teen know what to do if a stranger in the cyber world starts to harass him/her?