It can be a tough job bringing up kids today. Having to keep them safe on the road, making sure they aren't bullied in the playground, helping them to make wise decisions. Then, just when you thought that your house was a safe place for your kids, along comes the Internet !
The Internet is like bringing a city into your living room and as a parent there are lots of places in a city where you wouldn't want your children to go ! You therefore need to "take the virtual trip together" just as you would in an offline world and help your children stick to the positive. This means you doing some homework and understanding the issues - especially how Internet Chat works and how your children are using it.
Internet
parenting skills are very similar to other parenting skills, indeed helping
children to be smart online will help them to remember the "stranger
danger" rules and be alert to the dangers in the outside world.
BUT MY KIDS KNOW MORE THAN I DO !
Many adults can feel intimidated in using the Internet and are baffled
by some of the terms and technology, especially about Internet Chat. While
it is true that many children take to the Internet quicker than adults,
children still need parental advice and protection. It is vital that you
understand the issues and the simple safety steps you can take to help
keep children safe. Don't put it off ! You don't need to know everything
about the Internet and all the technical details - after all you can teach
your children the importance of wearing a seat belt in a car without understanding
how the car engine works!
On this site
you can learn about Chat, why it is popular with teenagers and what you
should be doing to ensure that your children keep safe online.
A teenage
Internet chat room is like a school playground with lots of kids talking
to each other in groups or just one-to-one chatting about last night's
football match, answers to homework, or the latest fashion etc. However,
unlike a physical playground, the chatting takes place with participants
linked to the same computer (or server) and allows people to have live
conversations with people from all over the world. Whatever you type in
a chat room appears instantly as a real-time conversation on the screen
for everyone else on the channel to see. All the people that are taking
part are listed with their nick name or screen name to the right-hand
side of the chat. Entering a chat room is kind of like eavesdropping on
a school playground: there may be more than one conversation going on
at once or one big shouting match !
There are 2 types of Chat services, Internet Relay Chat, (or IRC for short)
and individual web page Chat rooms. IRC is the most popular but in order
to Chat on IRC, you must download special software to your computer. One
of the most popular is called mIRC from
http://www.mirc.co.uk. However,
IRC is not something that you should just dive into without first doing
your homework. You could feel very lost if you do not know the basic rules.
Just like CB radio IRC has its own dialect. One of the best online guides
to how IRC works can be found on the mIRC
website
Chat is also available on individual web pages which are popular because it is so easy to use although not as instant. You don't need to download special software for web-based chat. For a list of web Chat channels see http://www.100hot.com/chat
If you haven't visited a Chat room before why not start by visiting a web-based Chat room such as Capital Radio's Chatroom at http://www.capitalfm.com and follow the simple instructions to join by choosing a password and nickname and then enter. In a few minutes you will see the Chatappear as text on the Chat screen and should see your nickname appear in the guest list.Note how easy it is to join and how on this site you are not asked to verify your age or sign up to a code of conduct. Furthermore there are no warnings to young people about what they should not disclose and no independent moderator overseeing the chat.
Those parents who have bought their teenagers mobile telephones will know just how much children love to chat ! Text messaging on mobiles is now very popular. However when children chat in the playground, on the street corner or on their mobiles they generally know who they are talking to - not so with Internet Chat !
When you enter a chat room you have to give an alias or nickname and you can pretend to be anyone you like. In fact adopting a new persona is part of the fun for many users. Behind a mask you can confront people, flirt or tell jokes and by using the language of chat escape into another world.
Teenagers love the immediacy of Chat and the fact that it is very much a private world one which their parents know little of and will never enter. Indeed to those parents who have spent time in a Chat room, a great deal of the conversation appears to be inane and cryptic. Again this makes young people feel that they are different and have their own private world.
In the case of the Smith family, the parents knew a lot about computers, however they had not visited a Chat room and did not realise that their daughter was communicating with strangers - one of whom sadly ended up abusing her.
Apart from the danger of young people become addicted and immersed in Chat and losing out on developing their social skills, finishing their homework or playing face-to-face with other children, the real danger of young people using Chat rooms is in being in-touch with someone who would wish to cultivate a relationship with them in order to contact them offline.
When your children are in a Chat area they are in a very public "place". They don't necessarily know the true identity of anyone they are talking to in the Chat room. Those who would wish to harm children can prey on those in Chat rooms who appear to be left out or lonely. They can pretend to be supportive and sympathetic and gain the trust of the young person by being willing to "listen" to their problems and provide friendship. Increasingly there are Chat rooms which use audio, which means if you have the right hardware (speakers and microphones) you can talk to those in Chat rooms. This is clearly an added dimension and Childnet would recommend that parents discourage children from using headphones whilst using the computer as they may be listening in private to inappropriate conversations.
Childnet
is aware of very many stories from all over the world - see Global
Scene section - which show that the Smith's story is not a one-off
incident. For every child who has been abused there may have been very
many others who were close to being hurt.
Parents or carers can often be caught out by kids when it comes to computers.
Whilst many have just become proficient at using a mouse, some watch in
amazement at their kids' ability to grasp the more complex aspects of
these new systems. Young people love technology and Chat offers children
an exciting opportunity not simply to view the world passively, but the
chance to interact and participate with other children, schools, charity
projects and celebrities.
There is
no way we can (or should) censor the Net, but we must make sure that when
technology can be used to harm children we as parents do our part. Here
are 7 key steps you should take.
