“The nation’s foremost academic researchers on child online safety presented their research and answered questions over a luncheon panel on May 3, 2007.”
Here is one thing they said that about the connection between being online and their risk for being a victim from internet violence:
“Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving
the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s
not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not
having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts
kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with
strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web
like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there,
kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil.”
6 responses so far ↓
You are abolutely right – it is not the medium that is at fault, but the moral fibre of society and the lack of parental supervision and guidance. If a child is denied access to the web and to emailing, social networks, blogs, etc, he still has access to objectionable literature. If the child has a cell phone, there are just as many dangers. Where is one drawing the line? So, rather than witholding media from a child, rather address the root cause(s) of the problem.
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Teenagers are still very likely to have the attitude, “It won’t happen to me.” It’s this that creates the climate for risky behaviors, not only online, but in other activities as well, such as driving. It’s the lack of concern for consequences that has become so prevalent in our society that serves to drive up the risk factor in teens’ behaviors, online and off.
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We need to educate the net users of today and tomorrow within the medium of their world – not hide them from it and hope they’ll be okay when they eventually do escape our paternalism.
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I just finished a unit on internet safety with my 7th graders and am now starting one with 6th. My 7th graders worked on a blog that I set up for them at http://bcdgrade7.edublogs.org. Their comments surprised me- they vacillate between thinking there is a predator behind every keyboard, to it would never happen to me. I asked their parents to comment on the blog and to take the survey I made up, but so far very few have. I don’t have much of a filter at school and the kids are trained with this in mind- not if something inappropriate happens, but when. I wish we could reach out and educate both parents and schools that filter everything and don’t take the opportunity to teach kids how to navigate the online world.
I also started my own “walled garden” ning for the kids in 7-9. They need a place to practice the skills involved in social networking and I’d like to have their mistakes happen in a safe environment instead of myspace or facebook.
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That statement in a nutshell, is the highlight of the report. Although we are now teaching our students about internet safety, it’s this statement that illustrates how parental engagement is so important. It’s parents who have the important role of formulating the values that children demonstrate. Being willing to discuss sex with strangers is part of what the morals and values set out by family.
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It’s so easy just to take away the internet priviledge from a child to avoid abuse but I won’t do that to my children. It’s like robbing from them. So, I just educate them with internet safety and pray hard they know what to do …
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