Parents trained in Internet safety

Times Reporter

 

Protecting your kids can be difficult, especially with all of the technology available at their fingertips. On Nov. 7 Const. Keith Anderson with the Strathmore RCMP was teaching parents at Sacred Heart Academy (SHA) about Internet safety.

“The thing is, with Internet safety…it’s no different than any other aspect of safety, it’s just that this is probably the first generation of kids for whom the Internet and online networking is one of their main means of communication. It’s become something the parents need to be more aware of is all,” said Anderson. 

The biggest piece of advice Anderson has is to be aware of what your kids are doing online. He said the kids are going to be online, it’s a big part of where their world is today, and parents need to be aware of what they are doing online and what information is out there. 

“The stats say that about half of the kids, half of the teenagers out there maintain one (account) their parents are aware of and then a pseudonym,” said Anderson. 

Kids don’t tell their parents everything they do outside of the house, which can be the same when it comes to online activities. Talking to your children and knowing about them and what they are interested in will help in making an educated decision. 

Anderson said a good analogy is, if you give your kids the chance to be out from after school until suppertime, you have to know them well enough to have an idea of what they are doing with their time. If your kids don’t have your trust then they don’t get the freedom and it can be the same thing with allowing them to go online. 

“I went to the presentation because my oldest daughter is 10 and getting to the age where her friends have cell phones and iPods that they can use online. I am not overly concerned with my children online but I did want to be aware of what was out there,” said Dawn Kalbhen. 

“He did a very good job of telling the parents what to be aware of but I also felt that he didn’t make it seem like the kids shouldn’t be online. The Internet is available to everyone now and he said that the best you can do as parents is to teach your children to trust their instincts and use their heads. Hopefully I can do that.”

Many times children will go to a friend’s house, where the rules may be different, and participate in online activities their parents may not approve of at home. 

“If you have key rules that you expect your kids to live by at home and elsewhere, you first of all have to trust your kids to live by them but it also would help to share those rules with the parents of their friends so that they can be lived by in those environments as well if they’re truly key rules to you,” said Anderson. 

There are a number of online resources with tips about how to deal with Internet safety including www.kidsintheknow.ca, www.getnetwise.org, www.internet101.ca and www.noslang.com. Google.ca can help parents locate other resource sites.