‘Shutting the gate after the horse has bolted’ parenting - I don’t know about you, but I’m often guilty of it. I’d been meaning to put an Internet filter on my 11 year old son, Joe’s computer for ages. Joe is on the autism spectrum and approaching puberty so I knew it was only a matter of time before he became curious about sex. "I must do it," I probably said half a dozen times, "but tomorrow." ... As parents we are charged with protecting our kids from danger, but when they become teenagers it can be difficult to know which line to tread. Teenagers expect, and indeed are entitled to, some independence. Read full article
...And this week a laptop shooting dad decided to use YouTube and Facebook to punish and humiliate his ungrateful 15 year old daughter for her disrespectful comments about him and his wife, and about all the chores she was expected to do ... I want to briefly comment on two things: Humiliation or shaming of children .... and mainstream and influential media commentators' comments ... Read full article
I recently came across a blog post about the potential for mobile phones to weaken kids’ conversational skills. The post at the 21st Century Fluency Project (originally posted by Katherine Bindley at Huffington Post) talked about the positive and negative influence of mobile phones and technology in general on the ability of children and teenagers to communicate effectively.
The topic caught my eye as my 12-year-old son was going to be receiving his first mobile phone for Christmas. Read full article
Not long after the release of Sony’s PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2000, I won a copy of the newly-released PlayStation game 'This is Football', in an online competition. Around the same time I was also given a shopping voucher as a bonus from work, and I used it to buy a PS2 unit – our family’s first-ever games console, and our first-ever DVD player ... It got to the point that we would ban the PlayStation for periods ... Read full article
This morning I had an article about media content classification published on a website.* The article discusses some proposed deregulatory changes to the Australian classification system and points out that these do not appear to serve the review’s guiding principle that "children should be protected from material that is likely to harm or disturb them." The first comment out of the blocks was: "Somebody think of the children!" Read full article
Industry is looking like emerging the winner from a review into Australia's classification system for media including films. A recent set of proposals on the classification system for media content is disturbingly industry friendly and contains little to help children and parents ... The proposals show an extraordinary tendency to push regulation into the hands of industry. Read full article
It will sound like a pun but I just don't "buy" this - well not all of it. I love to read research about children's wellbeing and think about its practical application. So headlines about this new UK research caught my eye. For example this one: "Must-have possessions that make a child happy: Why the best things in life aren't always free" ... Researchers for the Children's Society in the UK* surveyed 5500 children about their levels of happiness (also called 'subjective wellbeing') and their access to material goods ... Read full article
Four hundred Australian children (9 to 16 years old) and their parents, were interviewed for an Australian study about risks and safety for children on the internet. And by comparing the results of this survey with a larger European survey, it was found that Australian children are among the “youngest and most prolific users of the internet in the world.” ...The following risks were identified in both the Australian Report and the European study by EU Kids Online ... Read full article
Following a survey of 25000 children and their parents across Europe, a report was published called EU Kids Online; researchers aimed to provide information for policy makers about educating children and adults about online risks and opportunities .. .Included in the Report are the Top 10 Myths about online safety because in many cases, the researchers concluded that parents and adults in general are worried about the wrong things. Read full article
Recently I had the privilege of having a catch up with an online friend I had made through Twitter - sometimes called a tweetup. I didn't have as much hesitation as I did with my first meet up a few months back but it was still slightly anxiety-provoking ... When explaining the meeting to my children who were coming along to meet this 'tweep' and her children, I became hesitant, not about the meet up but explaining the context to them. How do I explain that I am meeting someone from the internet? how do I explain that I have never met her before and what are the repercussions and the thoughts our children may have about this situation? Read full article
