If there's one thing that every parent has had to learn the hard way, through experience, it is
this - that parents are always wrong. Whatever we choose to do as parents, a friends' parents are
doing differently, or whatever we think is good advice to follow today, was scrapped by everyone
else yesterday. Being a parent is hard work, and after all those childhood years resenting our own
parents and vowing that we would do things so much better if only given the chance, we are now well
aware that we are the very parents that we vowed we'd try not to be as children. It might well be
the case that we're not making the same mistakes as our parents, but we're excellent at making whole
rafts of new ones to make life interesting for ourselves and our children.
The biggest change in the world which we as parents can see is the introduction and proliferation of
computer equipment and technology. As young children ourselves, some of us would have had some
experience of innocent little units that could do relatively little, others of us had no experience
at all - it was another world. Today, we are bringing our children up in a world we could not
possibly have imagined, and seems as far removed from our own childhood as is possible to conceive.
Whereas we spent hours riding round on empty streets on our bikes, our children are stuck indoors
mesmerised by the images on their computer screen. Our challenges involved cycling all the way down
the hill as fast as we could, our children's seems to be to unlock the secrets of the Shrine of
D'Gaarn or kill as many Wailing Jarpees as possible in the hope of a good drop. If this leaves you
cold, or dazed, then welcome to the club.
Most of us are quite literate when it comes to using computers, and indeed most of us have to use
them for work each day. Sending and receiving emails, creating letters and documents, working
through spreadsheets and databases is of little difficulty. Yet our children seem to find depths to
the computer that leave us perplexed. We are the generation who is aware of identity problems, and
shred our paperwork rigorously, protecting our personal data at all costs. Yet our children seem to
relish the idea of publishing photos, journals and intimate secrets with rash abandon for the whole
world to see and do what they will with the material. We'd never stand in the street handing out our
email address, phone number and a bunch of photos to any individual who passed us. Yet this is
exactly what our children seem to be doing in the digital world. They claim to have hundreds of
online friends, yet have never met any of them, and this goes against our very concept of what
friendship means.
Naturally, with so many news stories about the terrible things that happen as a result of the
internet, with people masquerading as children in an attempt to lure them into meeting up in the
real world, and then never seen again. If you have considered the idea of simply binning the
computer and saving a lot of trouble, you certainly wouldn't be the first parent, or the only one to
have such concerns.
Most of us realise, however, that it isn't the computers which are evil, and the vast majority of
people on the internet are perfectly decent individuals. Yes, it's true that there are risks
associated with using the internet, but then there are dangers associated with almost everything in
life. We could go down to the shopping mall and be blown up by terrorists, or we could take a plane
on our next holiday and die in a horrendous crash, or we be knocked down and trampled by a donkey.
Every day we take risks, and yet most of us seem to survive them. Clearly this is because we take
calculated risks, and use common sense to judge the dangers, and act accordingly. Clearly getting in
to a plane held together by sticky tape would be absurd, and crossing the road blindfolded would
also be liable to come with far greater risk. Similarly, using the internet is only a danger if you
either have no idea what the risks are, or simply ignore them and effectively cross the road
blindfold every time you log on, or allow your children to.
It's important, therefore, that we appreciate what the real risks are when using the internet,
because the more we know and understand what the real risks and dangers are, the better we can help
inform and advise our children. If we allow them to take advantage of the incredible technologies
that surround us, but hold their hand through the learning stages, then we are all far more likely
to come out the other side unscathed. If you can understand more about chat rooms, messenger
clients, profiles and online games, then there will be more of a chance to chat with our children
about what they are doing. We all accept, I'm sure, that we can't ban them from living in the 21st
century, and so we have to accept that, just as we had to learn the dangers of the road, which was
not an issue back in our own parents' or grandparents' days, our children have to be taught the
dangers of life on the digital highway.
We spend time as parents teaching our children about 'stranger danger', and make sure they
understand not to interact with anyone they don't know. They have it drummed in to them from an
early age that they should not talk to strangers, go off with them, accept lifts or sweets or
invitations, and that if they suspect anything is wrong, run back home or to safety straight away
and tell someone. This same policy and understanding is often lacking online. The strangers are
still there, most of whom are perfectly decent, but many are sadly using the anonymity of the
internet to hide behind fake profiles. Our children understand about strangers in the street or
park. But online, people aren't strangers. They have photos, names, hobbies, backgrounds, families
and favourite music. The fact that these profiles may be entirely fake seems to pass our children
by.
There are other methods besides education which can be used, such as filtering software, monitoring
software to record all chat logs, and software that can limit or restrict either the websites
accessed or the times at which they can be accessed. Not allowing computers in the bedroom is
another good tactic - if the computer is somewhere public, such as the living room, then it is less
likely that your child will take risks, and it gives you the parent the chance to have a look at
what they're doing, express an interest, and learn more about the world they live in. Your child is
more likely to talk to you about what they're doing if you seem interested. Whilst restrictions,
software and spy-like monitoring can help, at the end of the day, it has to be about your
relationship with them, and the real world communication that takes place.
