Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Thursday, May 09, 2013 — (Business Wire India) — Today’s mothers wear multiple hats of being a care-giver, a nutritionist, a teacher, a support pillar and most importantly a role-model and advisor to all matters concerning the wellbeing of the child. In today’s day and age, an additional role that every mother should play is that of being a cyber-mother.
That is because instead of being nurtured through their formative years, today’s teens are meandering their way through an unrestricted virtual world with disturbing experiences like cyber bullying, befriending unknown strangers, getting into relationships and accessing provocative content. Arming our kids with the information they need and talking even more openly about the risks involved and how to deal with them, is a key agenda of being a new age mother.
Moreover, taking up this new role has become more critical and urgent for Indian mothers than ever before. According to McAfee’s Secret Lives of Teens survey of over 1500 Indian parents and teens, there is an evident discrepancy between parental perception and actual reality regarding the online activities of Indian teens. The survey shows that while parental concerns prevail, teens do end up sharing more dangerous information online, contrary to their parents’ belief. This divide is attributed to the fact that Indian teens are growing up as ‘digital natives’, with increasingly active online lives but lack of parental assistance; substantiated through some of the following statistics-
— 70% of the surveyed teens believe that they shouldn’t share their home address online but 40% of them still do. Correspondingly, only 21% of the polled parents believe teens would have actually done so.
— Although 31% of the surveyed teens have met their online acquaintances in real life, only 17% parents are aware of this.
— 20% of the surveyed teens access porn / nudity online willingly several times a day but 32% parents think teens willingly access it only a few times a year.
— 38% of the surveyed teens have witnessed cruel / mean behaviour online whereas only 16% parents are aware of this.
— Interestingly, 70% of polled parents completely trust their teens to tell them everything they do online whereas 58% polled teens strongly believe that they know how to hide their online activities from their parents.
This suggests that there are some real threats for children online and responsible cyber parenting is the need of the hour. On the occasion of Mother’s Day, here are some steps you can take to become a cybermum in addition to being a supermum.
— Work as a team to set boundaries: Discuss with r child exactly what is OK and what is not OK regarding what kind of web sites are appropriate for them, which chat rooms to visit, and what kinds of things they can talk about there. Only let your kids use monitored chat rooms. Avoid “.alt” chat rooms-they focus on alternative topics that may be inappropriate for kids. Get to know your child’s online friends as you do their school and neighbourhood friends. Learn to surf the web and chat online yourself so you understand what it is that your child is doing.
— Teaching Facebook etiquette to children: It’s important to teach kids to not believe everything on Facebook, is extremely important. They should not give much credence to those weak characters who try to avenge their hurt by insulting people or starting rumours. Deal with such people firmly by asking your kids to keep records of their statements and then deleting them from their friend lists.
— Keeping communication channels open: Talking and discussions will take you a long way with your child especially if we discuss cyber threats that are more prevalent today. Referring to ones own experiences always can help you be their confidantes.
— Setting the ground rules for computer usage: Ensuring that the family computer is in a very public location and that the screen faces the room and not the back wall. Setting time during schooldays and weekends when the child can use the PC. Laying down the usual penalty systems like ‘no computer for a week’ if a rule is breached. Accompanying your child to the stores to pick up the games of his/her choice.
— Learn how to save chat session logs, how to block users, and how to report problems: You can save sessions by copying and pasting the message text into a word processing program. Most chat programs allow you to block a user by right-clicking on their name in your contact list and choosing the “Block” or “Ignore” feature. If your child has a problem with any chatter, send the copied log to the chat room moderator or administrator. You can find the contact information in the help or reporting section of the program.
— Make sure your child understands that they are never to reveal personally-identifiable information such as their real name, gender, age, school, phone number, or where they live. Have them use a chat pseudonym that is non-provocative and doesn’t hint at who they really are. They must also guard other people’s personal information, such as friends’ names and phone numbers.
— Encourage physical activity more than online activities: Ensure your child goes out and plays if he/she seems to be getting too addicted to the PC.
— Don’t let your kids open attachments to email messages from friends or file-sharing services without you being there to approve and scan the content for viruses.
— Install up-to-date security software on your PC: For the most complete way to keep your children safe online, use parental control products such as McAfee Total Protection . Its parental control feature keeps children of all ages safe from exposure to inappropriate content, social networking risks, strangers, and other online threats.
