Sunday, March 10, 2013

"This Is Part of Raising Children Now": TV Report on Monitoring Kids' Online Lives

There's no excuse for not staying on top of your children's online activity, experts said in a recent TV news report from WRAL in Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

WRAL reporter Amanda Lamb talked to social media experts who agreed that parents must educate themselves about the media platforms their kids are using, and educate their kids — from the very beginning — about the various pitfalls involved. (See the TV report here.)



Lamb spoke with some kid experts, too. Twelve-year-old Kalyse Connor said social media is a "huge" part of her middle school life. Even her 7-year-old sister, Kaiya, is online, using sites like National Geographic's Animal Jam and doing Facetime with her mom.

But Kalyse and Kaiya's parents closely monitor all of their online activity. "Our girls cannot go on any social network without our permission," said Angela Connor, who manages social media for a communications company. “I think we have to be involved as parents," she said. "It's not OK to say, 'Oh, I don't know. We didn't do that when I was a kid.'"

A top concern of many parents is kids posting things that will get other people, or themselves, in trouble — now or down the road.

"We don't know what college applications are going to be like in six years," said the girls' father, Derek Connor. "Are they going to Google you? Are they going to go back and look at your Facebook page and see the things you've posted?"

"It's really important for parents to understand that they have to do this," Angela Connor added. "This is part of raising children now."

Watch the full report above, or read the story — which includes an Internet safety checklist for parents from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — here.

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