Building onlines safety in your family.
Part 1. Intentional parenting.

With the best will in the world, and all the information in the world, our children cannot remain safe online if we are not aware of what they’re doing online.

We find ourselves very suddenly at home with our children, navigating adjusted level 4 with no gatherings. Less or no play dates for kids (depending on how you interpret “gatherings’), more time at home keeping safe from being infected, or recovering from the virus. All of this could add up to more screen time. Anecdotal evidence I have gathered speaking to parents over the past year suggests that children have spent much more time on screens than previously.

My appeal to you is to parent with great intention when it comes to your child’s screen time. With the best will in the world, and all the information in the world, our children cannot remain safe online if we are not aware of what they’re doing online. Here are a few ideas about becoming more intentional.

Don’t plead ignorance

Sometimes we feel our children know more than us, and we don’t lead them, we wait for them to lead us in the digital world. But this thinking puts children at risk. They may be digitally more literate, but they are still not equipped to cope with the online world alone. Imagine you arrive with your family in an unfamiliar city and stop, you say to the kids “Ok, hop out, off you go and enjoy the exploration!” without so much as giving them a map or directions or how and when to find the family again. We would never do that. What we need to understand or shift in our thinking is that just because the digital world is “unseen” in many respects does not make it any less dangerous, in fact it could be more dangerous.

Educate yourself, consult experts, do what you need to do to ensure your children aren’t left out in the big city all alone.

You can contact Christy Herselman, creator of the Chat, to consult on digital safety plans in the family. www.thechat.co.za. Christy offers one-on-one and family consultations.

I subscribe to Protect Young Eyes (PYE) www.protectyoungeyes.com, a company that reviews apps and helps keep families updated with risks, trends, safety advice and information on all things digital. They are also about to launch a Masterclass for parents on online safety.

Find out what they’re doing online

Have ongoing conversations with your children about what they’re watching/playing/making online. Ask them to teach you one of the games they’re playing, if they’re into Minecraft let them take you on a tour of their world. If they have their own phone and tablet, look at the apps they’re using. Ask them how things work. Ask them how playing certain games/apps make them feel. What do they enjoy about being online? What do they not enjoy?

Have a screen time plan

Make a family plan for screen time. You will need to review this fairly frequently as children grow and their needs change. It’s a good boundary, but there should be a bit of flexibility where needed.

Right now, in our family during school holidays there is a 2 hour a day limit on screen time, and two days of the week are completely screen free. A recent change has been made to this plan in that they are allowed an additional 2 hours a week of research or creative time. This is time that must be productive, such as editing a video or doing an online course. The flexibility in our plan comes over weekends where we watch family movies together that are over and above the kids screen time. However, we also reserve the right to reduce or even cancel screen time if there has been too much, or their behaviour has been questionable. Because screen time is absolutely a privilege and not a right.

It is helpful to have a screen time plan written out for all to see and remember, especially if it’s a new boundary you’re putting in place. Everyone in the family can contribute to this plan, and sign it once agreed upon. For those of us who have lost hours and hours of our lives negotiating screen time, this plan could be very helpful!

Have a safety plan

There are many parental controls available for different devices. Bark is one such app that monitors online activity. These type of parental controls should be used as transparently as possible with your children; they should know they are being monitored and why. Here is a review of the Bark app by a parent https://wordfromthebird.blog/the-blog/bark-parental-control-review-honest/

Long term goals

When you’re making decisions now about screen time, think about the long term effects. I want my children to leave home one day and know how to spend time away from their screens. I want them to know how to have face to face conversations. I want them to be able to talk about many things and not only what they watched on YouTube. I want them to be interesting, interested people who are actually in tune with the world around them. (And for all the information overload the internet offers us, screen-addicted people are fairly boring people, in my humble opinion.)

Be self- aware

Think about your own screen time use, especially when your children can see you. Are you happy with the time you spend on social media, is it satisfying or fulfilling to you? Is it meeting your needs or is it a numbing tool? When you think about the length of time children see you sitting on a screen for leisure do you feel ok with it? Whatever values and practices you’re trying to instill in your children around screen time, you need to model these first.

Offer alternatives

Offering face to face play and interactions is always a wonderful way to get children off screens. When you limit screen time, make sure you spend some of that time doing something together. This doesn’t mean we have to entertain our children constantly. But we do have to remind them and ourselves that play in real life is as important (if not more so) than through a screen!

Stay tuned for Part 2 which will be looking at risks and resources.

I have been thinking about online usage and safety for our children for a long time. There is a lot to think about. So much so that I am going to do a mini-series over a few weeks…I would be keen to hear your vews, feedback, advice and practices as we go. Feel free to email me on [email protected]