For the love of God, shouldn’t I have thought of this by now?
Yesterday, I attended an event hosted by urbanmoms.ca and Microsoft. Microsoft wanted to show off their new operating system and speak to moms about what Windows 7 offers them in terms of security, safety and fun for their families and themselves. There was food, laughter, and a great demo of the highly anticipated follow-up to Windows Vista.
Mind you, the Commodore 64 would be highly anticipated, compared to Vista… but I digress…
Before I go any further, I’ll clarify. Yes, I am a Dad, not a Mom. And yes, I was nevertheless invited to an event for Moms. I call it a perk of being the only Y chromosome on urbanmoms.ca. More digressing. I apologize.
There were a lot of Moms there with kids that are quite a bit older than Pea. Parents of pre-teens and teens were in abundance and as a result much of the conversation revolved around how to keep our kids from exposing themselves to safety and predatory issues on the web.
There was debate over whether or not one should allow their 13-year-old to open a Facebook account (and the stunning revelation that even if you say no, they are likely to do it anyway).
There was discussion around how to monitor and police your children when they do, in fact, start twittering and posting photos and videos of themselves on various social networking sites.
And there was conversation about how this generation of kid sees and uses the internet in unique ways and for unique reasons. Reasons that I am unlikely to ever fully understand.
As the conversation rolled-on, I heard well thought-out opinions from concerned Moms who had clearly thought long and hard about this topic.
Here’s what I want to tell you: I also had well thought-out opinions about this topic. I’ve already done research, made plans for our home computing and determined exactly how I will keep Pea from all of the evils that exist on the internet.
After all, that’s a Dads job, right? To keep his family safe.
The reality is that I sat in stunned silence and considered for the first time an issue that I will face far sooner than most of the Moms in the room. I felt ill-prepared and uninformed.
I felt like I’d failed a pop quiz in Fathering 101.
I felt bad for a minute, and then I quickly checked myself. After all, Pea is a long way from being web proficient and I’ve got time to map things out and safeguard our link to the outside world.
More to the point, I also understand that the WWW of today will be nothing like the web of 6 or 7 years from now, when Pea will likely start using the web for networking with her friends. What I would learn about safety today will be completely different months from now, let alone years from now.
The best thing I can do is try. Try to learn about the latest technologies that exist and try to understand the threats that are out there.
Hearing the difficulty that today’s Moms were having in keeping things safe for their kids made me realize that there no time for procrastination. This Dad’s got a job to do, and the luxury of time can only help.
All this, assuming technology doesn’t evolve to the point that she will have a chip implanted in her ear so that she can be in constant communication with everyone she has ever known.
I couldn’t handle that one.
Got an opinion on how to keep your kids safe when they’re using the web? Leave a comment or two so everyone can benefit.
The WWW is a much scrarier place today than it ever was as it relates to our children. Nanny911 had this particular rerun on this week. Some of the points I recall are:
1. to keep the computer in a general area where it can be monitored/viewed by parents as they walk by.
2. know your children’s passwords and let them know that although you will not be checking their accounts daily that this will be done randomly.
3. ensure that you have installed computer child protection software on your computer and ensure that it is turned on.
4. limit your child use of the computer.
These are a few that I remember, but I’m sure that other parents have implemented processes in their homes that are working for them.
As a grandmother, computers were not prevalent in our children’s lives as much as they are today. Used to be, we worried more about our children being outside on their own, instead of the predators that are found within the 4 walls of our home.