Online Parenting: Raising Your Kids in a Digital Society
Online security is one of every parents’ biggest concerns in this modern age. While the internet offers tons of information and opportunities, the perils and dangers abound as well.
From the threat of online predators to scammers and phishers to lewd and age-inappropriate content, the internet is not completely safe for kids to explore all by themselves. They could accidentally click on a link that will lead them to suspicious sites or download files that contain malware and compromise their account information and security.
If you suspect that any virus or malware has infected your child’s iPhone, take it to an iPhone repair center in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Orlando, or anywhere you are in the country. There are a lot of highly reputable iPhone specialists that can help you make your child’s phone more secure and prevent it from happening again.
So what’s a parent to do to keep their child safe online and help them become more responsible with their mobile devices?
Raising iGen Responsibly
The iGen generation is the generation of children born between 1995 and 2012. This generation is made up of about 87 million kids, teens, and young adults in the U.S. alone. That’s not counting the millions of other iGens across the globe. This generation has unlimited access to the internet and all its advantages and, unfortunately, disadvantages.
In light of digital parenting, parents from all over the world are at a divide regarding regulation and implementation.
According to research done in high-income countries, parents are shifting away from restrictive forms of mediation and instead are enabling and empowering their children by sharing their own online experiences and walking them through parental and privacy settings and other related online security measures.
On the other hand, parents from middle- to low-income countries prefer more authoritarian, restrictive mediation. This preference is partly due to a lack of available resources that parents feel they must resort to limiting their children’s internet access to protect them.
While there is still no one-size-fits-all approach to online parenting, there are practical ways that parents can get involved and raise their children to be more responsible internet and mobile device users.
6 Ways to Engage Children for Responsible Online Access and Use
1. Develop and implement an online family media plan.
2. Encourage and ensure that your children get at least one hour of physical activity each day.
3. Enforce the no-gadget-in-the-bedroom policy. This includes non-use of devices an hour before sleeping time. This helps ensure your children get at least 8 to 12 hours of sleep a day.
4. Educate your kids about the real dangers and threats online. Do not scare them or discourage them from using it. Simply inform them and guide them to make better decisions when it comes to their online time.
Once they’re done with their screentime, just ask them what they were doing and how it went. Do not interrogate them.
5. Always include a media-free time in your daily schedule. This should be followed by both kids and parents. Plan activities that will foster a stronger bond between you and your children that has nothing to do with gadgets and devices.
6. Teach your kids to use the internet for productivity and not just entertainment. Direct them to material and content that will help them learn new stuff and develop new skills.
No matter how you look at it, the digital world is not going anywhere and is here to stay. As parents, it is our responsibility to adapt and educate our children to help them make wiser and more-informed decisions online.
