The Place Of A Parent Is In The Wrong

Posted by Russell M. Stewart

Being a parent has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. When we were children it all looked so easy, and we constantly criticised our own parents for making disastrous mistakes, all of which we swore we’d never make if and when we ever got to be parents ourselves. So here we are, making whole reams of mistakes of our own, and finding that whatever we think is the right thing to do, our children, or our children’s friends have other ideas. We look at other parents, who seem to manage fine, and then we look at our own mess and wonder what went wrong. Being a parent is very much like being up a creek without a paddle, and the boat’s leaking. Each day seems another battle has to be won.

Of course, today the world in which our children are growing up is a very different one to our own childhood experiences. With computer technology and the rapid development and integration of the internet into daily life, our children are placed in situations far removed from anything we could have imagined. With friends on the other side of the planet that they have never met, but know intimate secrets about, and evenings spent in front of their monitor, in rapt attention, attempting to rescue the Lost Artefact from the Tomb of Al’Kqaar, or chatting away to the other members of their guild in order to bring down the mighty Fargore, we as parents can only sit back and wonder. And don’t worry - you’re not the only parent to scratch their head and wonder what it’s all about.

Most of us are quite literate when it comes to using computers, and indeed most of us have to use them for work each day. Sending and receiving emails, creating letters and documents, working through spreadsheets and databases is of little difficulty. Yet our children seem to find depths to the computer that leave us perplexed. We are the generation who is aware of identity problems, and shred our paperwork rigorously, protecting our personal data at all costs. Yet our children seem to relish the idea of publishing photos, journals and intimate secrets with rash abandon for the whole world to see and do what they will with the material. We’d never stand in the street handing out our email address, phone number and a bunch of photos to any individual who passed us. Yet this is exactly what our children seem to be doing in the digital world. They claim to have hundreds of online friends, yet have never met any of them, and this goes against our very concept of what friendship means.

Few of us can have missed the numerous stories on the news about children who go missing after meeting up with someone on the internet. The statistics are grim, and the reality is clearly that there are predators who use the internet as a way of accessing children. It’s easy to view the computer as the problem, as the cause of danger, and the temptation is to remove its presence from the home entirely.

Most of us realise, however, that it isn’t the computers which are evil, and the vast majority of people on the internet are perfectly decent individuals. Yes, it’s true that there are risks associated with using the internet, but then there are dangers associated with almost everything in life. We could go down to the shopping mall and be blown up by terrorists, or we could take a plane on our next holiday and die in a horrendous crash, or we be knocked down and trampled by a donkey. Every day we take risks, and yet most of us seem to survive them. Clearly this is because we take calculated risks, and use common sense to judge the dangers, and act accordingly. Clearly getting in to a plane held together by sticky tape would be absurd, and crossing the road blindfolded would also be liable to come with far greater risk. Similarly, using the internet is only a danger if you either have no idea what the risks are, or simply ignore them and effectively cross the road blindfold every time you log on, or allow your children to.

What are the dangers or risks involved in using the internet, or computers, and exactly what can we as parents do to try to ensure that our children can enjoy using this amazing resource, whilst at the same time staying as safe as possible? The key to safety is understanding - whatever it is you’re doing. Whether it’s driving on the motorway, parachuting or flying to the moon, the more you understand the risks, the less risk you’ll be taking. By understanding what it is that your children are doing, and knowing what they mean by avatars, profiles, chat rooms, messenger programs and online games, you will be able to share your child’s experiences much more, and help them to use the internet more safely. The more we can work with our children to encourage them to use the technology in a positive way, but understanding the dangers and risks, the more chance we have of helping to ensure their safety, enabling them to decide themselves on the level of risk.

We spend time as parents teaching our children about ’stranger danger’, and make sure they understand not to interact with anyone they don’t know. They have it drummed in to them from an early age that they should not talk to strangers, go off with them, accept lifts or sweets or invitations, and that if they suspect anything is wrong, run back home or to safety straight away and tell someone. This same policy and understanding is often lacking online. The strangers are still there, most of whom are perfectly decent, but many are sadly using the anonymity of the internet to hide behind fake profiles. Our children understand about strangers in the street or park. But online, people aren’t strangers. They have photos, names, hobbies, backgrounds, families and favourite music. The fact that these profiles may be entirely fake seems to pass our children by.

Possibly you may already be aware of the fact that there is a wealth of security software available for parents. These enable you to lock down and protect your computer, installing filters and logs, restrictions and blocking tools, guards and scanners, but to be honest most of this will simply cause our children to be ever more curious about what really is on the other side of the wall you’ve built. We were children once, and we know that the first thing you want to do if told not to look over the wall, is to look over the wall, and most children are smart enough to work out a way of getting past the security. A far more effective way of supporting and protecting them is to communicate with them. To have the computer somewhere publically visible so that you can see what they’re doing, share an interest, and talk with them, is far better than trying to lock everything down and then running away to pretend the dangers will go away.

Share This

Tags: Social

Under Social Tags: Social