Kids Need Guidance Online
By FAMILY WISE GREGORY RAMEY, PH.D.
I received a note from a reader thanking me for a recent column detailing the dangers kids confront on the Internet, dealing with unwanted pornography, cyber bullies and contacts with strangers. I received quite a response from that column, as parents were surprised and concerned by the Pew Center report that about one third of teens report cyber contact with someone they don’t know. A 2003 study in Journal of Adolescence indicated that about 25 percent of the teens surveyed formed casual relationships and 14 percent had close or romantic friendships with such strangers.
The reader concluded that the best way to protect her three children from these threats was simply to cancel the family’s Internet access. “I can’t shelter my kids forever, but at least they will be safe when they are living in my home,” she concluded.
This is a very understandable but wrong approach. About 5,000 teens die yearly from motor vehicle accidents, with another 300,000 injured. Perhaps these kids would be safer if we never let them ride it cars, but is that the right response? The best way to protect our children from the cyber world is to educate them about the safe use of technology, rather than eliminate its availability and hope for the best when they turn 18.
The benefits of Internet usage by our children remain greater than the risks.
1. Access to an exciting world of information. The Internet provides our children with the ability to read and research a world far beyond our everyday lives. While the Internet will never replace local libraries, it does provide access that is faster, more readily available and more current than most libraries. Such information is not just useful in preparing a research paper, but also allows our children access to other types of information. Younger kids may spend hours learning about horseback riding or their favorite sports teams. Teens may look up answers to very personal concerns about sexuality and normal physical development.
Just as you needed to teach your children how to use a library, help them learn how to navigate the Internet. One of the greatest challenges of the cyber world is distinguishing accurate from erroneous information. Help them sort out contradictory information and learn how to become discriminating Internet users.
2. Social contact with other teens. Here’s the scary part of the cyber world for parents. Teens use the Internet to meet other teens – - “strangers” to parents but potential friends to our kids. Social networking sites like MySpace or chat rooms on AOL are a worldwide cyber community, a meeting place without walls and few limits. Kids go to these places for a reason. Without the awkwardness and embarrassment of personal contact, teens can talk, connect, support, encourage, question and try to understand a world they find perplexing and occasionally overwhelming.
Perhaps it would be better if teens spoke with us or had direct contact with people they knew. However, many can’t or won’t approach us or others. Parents need to accept the reality that these virtual communities are now an essential part of our teens’ lives. We need to guide them in how to interact with this cyber community rather than thinking we can indefinitely prevent them from entering that world.
Don’t terminate Internet access for your teen because of the very real dangers of the cyber world. Instead, understand and enter that world with your kids, preparing them to reap the rewards while minimizing the risks from this technological and cultural transformation.
Next Week: Punishing your children at Christmas
Gregory Ramey, Ph. D., is a child psychologist and vice president for outpatient services at The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton. For more columns by Dr. Ramey, visit the Dayton Children’s Web site at www.childrensdayton.org and sign up for FamilyWise, a free e- newsletter for parents. Send comments to Dr. Ramey at familywise@childrens dayton.org.
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