When you became a parent, nobody handed you an owners' manual. From health to education to socialization, raising chidren today is hard enough without the spectre of cyberbullying looming over your heads. The old days of classroom taunts and playground insults have exploded into the technical age, and today's children have a lot more to worry about.
When it comes to kids and their online activities, the term parental controls has been replaced by parental monitoring. Children are more technologically savvy than ever before, and they can easily get around most of the controls that you put in place. If they have Internet access, all they have to do is Google something for more information. Furthermore, YouTube is becoming more popular each day for its entertaining content and for the fact that it often has step-by-step, how-to videos on virtually anything.
Young kids also know not only how to make cell phone calls and send text messages, they can download and use most smart phone applications. Overall, developing technical skills and gaining independence is beneficial to kids. However, as the saying goes, greater freedom comes with greater responsibility.
uKnowKids was on The Ricki Lake Show today, and it was truly an amazing day. Hundreds of thousands of parents learned about uKnowKids today, and that is the very good news!
From photos to group homework assignments, the Internet is the way that our kids (and adults, too, if we're honest) communicate with others. We share videos and music via Twitter and Pinterest. We post to each other's Facebook walls and chat or instant message with others. We blog about ourselves and our interests. What does all that information sharing amount to?
Although parents and their kids both share a lot online, the perception out there about information sharing online is different. You and I are likely to think that others are sharing too much; our children are more likely to say that others aren't.
Airing Thursday October 4th, Tim Woda, our in-house Internet and Mobile Safety expert will be guest starring on The Ricki Lake Show. Covering two segments of the hour long show Tim details the harrowing story that led to the creation of uKnow.com and uKnowKids. If you would like to join us for our viewing party we will be hosting a Google+ Hangout with Tim and our Team. Join in on Thursday at 11:00 AM EST!
Thursday Show Preview:
"How much is too much when it comes to sharing on Social Media?
This month Marco Viscomi, a 27-year-old college student from Canada, was indicted in federal court for using a computer virus to blackmail teenage sisters into producing child pornography – of themselves.
He struck up a conversation online with the 17-year-old and talked her into sending him some risqué photos, then downloading a file from him that turned out to be a virus. Then he told her that he would ruin her laptop and send the photos to her parents if she didn't make explicit videos with her 13-year-old sister.
Parental monitoring is difficult to begin with. It's no longer just about the family computer, but about knowing what your teen is up to on the laptop, iPod, Xbox live, and smart phone. And to make it even more difficult, your teen is probably actively trying to hide their Internet activity from you.
7 out of 10 teens report hiding their online activity from their parents, whether by minimizing browser windows when you enter the room or using a device they know you don't or can't monitor as closely.
Your teens know how to use the Internet. They've been using it since they were old enough to talk. But do they know how to use it responsibly, without compromising their safety or just plain being rude or irritating to others? If your teens are online, which they undoubtedly are, they need to be aware of committing these 10 Internet faux pas.
In a world where cyberbullying is commonplace behavior and online rudeness is par for the course, here are 3 simple arguments for your teen to avoid being negative online and be more positive in his posts and texts.
1. Negativity Makes You A Target
Twitter is gaining popularity among teens, and it's different from other social networks in a lot of significant ways. If Facebook is like an after-school hangout, then Twitter is like scanning all of their favorite newspapers and magazines – as well as picking up the latest school gossip. Here are 9 things parents should know about teenage Twitter use.
There is no minimum age to sign up for Twitter.
On average, how much would you say your teen goes online? Checks their Facebook? Sends text messages? If you're like most parents, you greatly underestimate both the time and the intensity with which your teen is involved with the Internet and mobile devices. Parental monitoring is important, if for no other reason than to have an accurate picture of what your kids are doing online, and how much they're doing it.
When my children were small, I knew everything they did, every television show they watched, every friend they had. If they wanted a snack from the cupboard or a new toy from the store, they had to go through me. I was in complete control.
Cheating when I was in school usually involved sticking a tiny little crib sheet in your shoe, or taking peeks underneath your sleeve at the answers you'd penned on your arm that morning. But today many teens carry the ultimate technology in academic cheating: their mobile phones.
There are lots of ways to cheat using a cell phone. 16% of teens admit to looking for test answers on their phone, and 48.1% have looked up answers online. Kids can also sneak in modern-day crib sheets (pictures of their class notes,) text friends for answers, or take pictures of the test and send them to others to help them cheat.
Internet, how I love thee: let me count the ways. I use it all the time, and my kids do, too. I don't even own a hard copy phone book or map anymore. My kids use it for their homework, entertainment, and I like that they can find how-to videos on just about anything. But about those videos...
The downside of video sharing sites (most notably, YouTube) and sometimes the Internet in general, is that they give kids ideas about not-so-smart stunts that they may end up trying on their own.
They're usually called “challenges.”
Many potential and current customers ask us what features we monitor for the iPhone. At this time, the iPhone has a technical limitation which makes it impossible for a third-party application to monitor native telecom functionality such as text messaging. As soon as Apple addresses this limitation within their operating system, we will immediately move to monitor iPhone text messaging.
Back to school shopping sure is different than when I was a kid. The most high-tech item on my list was maybe a graphing calculator.
Now many schools are embracing new technology and running with it. Teachers send out class updates on Twitter and iPads are regularly used in the classroom, even for preschoolers. Maybe tablets and smart phones aren't on the official school list, but they're probably on your child's wish list for back to school.
Maybe you don't know what a “dumb phone” is, but your teens certainly do – and they don't want one.
One of my closest girlfriends hasn't upgraded to a smart phone yet: her trusty old flip phone serves her just fine. She does find herself several times a day, however, constantly apologizing for her lack of connectivity.
If we're in a group and someone says, “quick, grab your phone and take a picture!” or “get on Facebook to show me some pictures of your new niece,” she has to shrug and say, “Sorry, I can't. I have a dumb phone.”
The most common use of a teenager's smart phone, aside from texting, is social networking. Teens with smart phones are extremely likely to use them to go on Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites.
Recent statistics tell us that 9 out of 10 American teens who own smart phones use social networking sites. They also show that 9 out of 10 teenage smart phone owners have used their phones to go online in the last month.
Okay, the second statistic isn't too shocking: if you pony up for a shiny new iPhone and a data plan to go with it then it would be dumb not to use it. But here's the interesting part: teenage smart phone owners were less likely than their peers to go online using desktops or laptop computers. They preferred their phones.
Most of us think of parental monitoring in terms of protecting your child from bullying and predators, or maybe just protecting them from posting an inappropriate picture on a whim that could haunt them for years. Of course it does all those things, but simply knowing where our kids are online can clue us in on what's going on in their life.
Just by checking the Internet history on my home computer I know what news stories my husband is interested in and what projects my kids are working on in school. Did you know that just looking at the sites your kids have visited in the last few days and weeks can also give you a pretty good picture of what their life looks like right now?
There's no end to the functionality of a smart phone. It's easy to dismiss your child's requests (or desperate pleas) for a smart phone without really thinking about it. But here are 4 really worthwhile uses for a smart phone that every parent can appreciate.
GPS. Kids get lost, and GPS isn't just for cars. Wherever they are, GPS helps them find their way home. And there are services you can subscribe to that will leverage the GPS
The media loves the phrase 'bullycide,' and the kids like Phoebe Prince who take their lives in the wake of cyberbullying are never far from the thoughts of parents. But are we doing our kids a disservice by stressing the link between cyberbullying and suicide.
When I picked up my friend's 10-year-old daughter Gabby for art class last spring, I asked her how her day had gone. “Good,” she said. “A guy came to our school and told us about his son, who killed himself because he was bullied.”
