Tell your kids: The Internet is where the Big Bad Wolf really lives
I recently ran across some very good thoughts on blogging and protecting children. First there’s this post on a blog called ” Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless” and then there’s
this article that asks, “Blogs are a fun forum of self-expression for adolescents. But might blogging be dangerous?”
I won’t repeat everything said in those two links, but I want to add my personal thoughts on the matter. I think that the Internet can be a very dangerous thing, and that parents and adults need to protect children from those dangers.
The interesting thing about these articles is that they bring to light a new point that I hadn’t thought about, the effects of children posting personal information about themselves on the Internet that could make them easy targets of kidnapping or other such acts.
I’ve definitely thought about the fact that we need to keep foul content out of our homes through the Internet, but I hadn’t thought about how careful parents also need to be in what they or their children are sending out of their home for others to read.
Blogs are published for the whole world to read. If I had children, I don’t know if I would want the world knowing what my kid looks like, what his name is, and where he lives, and what he does on a Tuesday night (because he posted it on his personal blog for anyone to read). That’s just scary. I mean I might post some of those sort of things on my blog (the one you are reading right now, in fact!), but I am an adult and I can protect myself — children can’t really. That’s why they have parents!
But unfortunately, parents are stupid today. They let their kids become smarter than they are when it comes to technology. In this digital age, parents need to learn, or they are going to start learning the hard way, as they and their children suffer such abuses of the Internet as identity theft and kidnapping. We don’t need any more missing or harmed children.
I don’t ever want my kid to be smarter than I am when it comes to how technology affects our lives and the risks it poses to them. I am glad that I am as aware of the potential dangers that come with the Internet so that when I am a father someday (I know, I gotta get married first, and before that I gotta have a girlfriend, but hey… someday maybe) I can protect my children and my home from those dangers and let my kids enjoy and learn about technology without exposing themselves to potential harm.
