digital parenting – Page 33 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

acceptable use, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parents and technology

On Websites, What Age is the Right Age?

Posted on October 5, 2010February 27, 2015 by Marti Weston

Is it OK for your child to visit a site with age restrictions, register, and then fib about his or her age?

Recently at my nearby public library I overheard a conversation between two parents. Discussing a fairly well-known website and its age requirements, one parent commented that she was not letting her child use the site because the rules said users must be 13, and her child was not yet 13. The other parent, whose child was in the same grade, thought that the age limits were ridiculous, so she allows her child to sign up and pretend to be age 13. “We are just fudging a bit,” she said (laughed).

My question — is this just fudging, or is a parent sending a message that it is OK to put false data into website information blanks? It’s tricky, because kids eagerly learn things that we don’t intend for them to learn. Even if we think a rule is silly, do we really want to encourage our children to break the rules that they think are silly? Are there other alternatives?

Continue reading “On Websites, What Age is the Right Age?” →

digital citizenship, digital parenting, parent education, parents and technology

Help! What’s that Internet Term? M!T!P! Blog Excursion-10/5/10

Posted on October 5, 2010October 6, 2010 by Marti Weston

So you are online, and you see a term you do not understand — aggregator, for instance or secure socket layer (SSL). How about TRUSTe? No need to despair. Instead, when you discover an unfamiliar word go to GetNetWise and visit the Internet glossary.

Although your digital children whiz confidently around the virtual world (probably too confidently, from your perspective), it’s likely that they don’t know many of these terms either. Make it your business to learn about them and have fun demonstrating your knowledge.

The site also features a Tools for Families database to help parents search for filters, blockers, monitors and other tools to assist families craft home Internet environments. You can also check out the GetNetWise blog.

GetNetWise (learn more about the industry sponsors and supporters) is part of the Internet Education Organization.

acceptable use, cell phones, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parents and technology

Driving? Texting? Phoning?

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Marti Weston

Read a post from the Thrive blog at Children’s Hospital Boston. In R U Ready 2 Stop Txting, Lois Lee MD, MPH, links to statistics, discusses the new Massachusetts texting law that took effect September 30, 2010, and offers suggestions about digital era parenting.

Dr. Lee directly addresses parents about virtual connections while driving.

Most of us would never drink and drive in front of our kids, race other cars, or even start the engine without buckling up first. Why then would we set a bad example for our children by texting behind the wheel? Though they may deny it, we have a much greater influence over our teens’ behavior than they let on. If you practice safe driving, there’s a far better chance your teenager will as well. ‘Do as I say, not as I text’ isn’t just hypocritical, it’s dangerous.

acceptable use, digital citizenship, digital parenting, digital photography, parents and technology, privacy

The Power of Instant Images, Part II: 8 Ideas to Safeguard A Personal Image

Posted on October 3, 2010February 27, 2011 by Marti Weston

Taking Digital Photos

Guidelines to Help Avoid Misunderstandings and Unintended Consequences

Ask if it is OK to take a person’s picture, especially in unconventional settings.
If you snap a picture of another individual, you own that picture, but you do not own that person’s image. You can’t automatically post a friend’s image online or in public without permission.
Avoid e-mailing, texting, or posting silly, inappropriate, or embarrassing pictures. Your lighthearted intentions may cause unexpected or unintended consequences. No one wants to be embarrassed in public, and this is the biggest way people get in trouble with digital photography. Sometimes this can even lead to accusations of cyber-bullying.
When person you know is upset or in distress, do not take a picture unless an image will help solve a problem or keep that person from getting hurt.
Carefully choose your own personal pictures for online posting. Once uploaded or e-mailed, a picture lives somewhere out on the web forever. You never really get it back, even if you delete it from a site or throw away the e-mail.
Do not modify someone’s image with Photoshop or other image editing program without that person’s permission.
Always honor the requests that an individual makes about a personal picture.
Remember that “a picture is worth a thousand words” — but you have no control of those words once an image is in cyberspace via e-mail, text, chat, or website.

acceptable use, cultural changes, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parents and technology

The Tragedy of Tyler Clementi

Posted on October 2, 2010March 20, 2019 by Marti Weston

No words console a family when a child dies, especially a loss caused by cruel and bigoted peers who don’t comprehend digital world distinctions between right and terribly wrong. A much-loved boy, a gifted musician, a young man who made others smile and relax with beautiful music — and whose sexual identity was no one’s business but his own, even in the confusing milieu of a freshman college dorm — is dead.

For the rest of us — parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other adults — much can be said. Tyler Clementi’s suicide dramatically illustrates, yet again, the youth disconnect between privacy as we knew it in the past and the increasingly few layers that protect us today. With no clear definition of privacy, children, adolescents, and even young adults perceive few behavior boundaries –those lines in the sand that delineate the ethical from the unethical, the fun from the vicious. How many more children do we have to lose?

Whatever can we do?

Continue reading “The Tragedy of Tyler Clementi” →

digital parenting, digital world reading habits, interesting research, parents and technology

Kids and Digital Reading

Posted on September 29, 2010February 27, 2015 by Marti Weston

scholastic report — Click this graphic to read the full report.

This week the Scholastic Corporation published a report describing the views of children and their families about reading, and it is worth taking the time to read.

Based on responses from 1045 children and their parents, the survey aimed to discover thoughts about digital activities and reading habits in today’s virtual world. The report is chock full of amazing graphs that depict the views and thoughts of young readers as well as parents’ responses to similar questions. Many of these graphs break the children’s answers by age group.

Today’s blog post reports on the first section of the report — Reading Books in the Digital Age. Tomorrow I’ll provide highlights from the other two sections.

Interesting Opinions from Kids

Kids report that reading books for fun has decreased while a digital media activities have increased.
39% of children reported that the information they find online is always correct (page 12).
25% of young respondents have read a book on a digital device (page 14).
57% of children want to read a book on a digital device (page 15).
39% of young respondents said that they might read more if they had greater access to eBooks (page 16).
66% percent of children said they will always want to read books printed on paper even if eBooks are available (page 18).

Key Observations from their Parents Continue reading “Kids and Digital Reading” →

acceptable use, digital parenting, digital photography, image evaluation, media literacy, parents and technology

The Power of Instant Images: Digital Photography Series, Part I

Posted on September 27, 2010September 27, 2010 by Marti Weston

So your child has a new digital camera or phone, a birthday or holiday present, or a just-for-fun gift, and photos are now speeding through the virtual world in every direction — via e-mail to friends, in a Flickr album, attached to a text message, and highlighting social networking comments. Before too many pictures find they way to these and other locations, take some time for a digital photo-taking orientation — a review of guidelines and expectations. Today’s world is a vastly different place, nothing like the photo-taking environment that most adults remember from their younger days, and photos can end up in unanticipated places or cause unforseen problems.

Photography in the last ten years or so has undergone extraordinary changes. No longer do we buy and load film. Nor do we wait a few days for processing to look at our pictures. Today instant access, in terms of speed and range of circulation, defines photography. Pair this speed with the occasional child or adolescent misjudgment, and an image becomes public in moments. This impulsive image sharing can cause hurt feelings, anger, and even accusations of cyber-bullying.