Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Staying Safe



Like my momma always said: You can never be too careful. Actually I don't remember my momma saying that an awful lot, but that's beside the point. It's still good advice.

And now that I'm a momma myself and I have three school-age kids who are pretty net-savvy I find myself saying and thinking that phrase pretty often. We have a computer that is pretty much set up just for the kids. They are monitored on it and can only go to sites approved by me. But still....they need to be armed with information that they'll use even when I'm not around. Because their friends have computers, too and strangely, I'm not invited to slumber parties anymore. They're so closed-minded that way.

At Abby's high school in recent weeks a group of girls got in major trouble with the DA and even the FBI when their hate page on the web went too far. Kids need to know that behavior like that is cyber-bullying and not acceptable. Back when I was a kid the only bullying we dealt with was the big kids in the back of the bus or the occasional mean girl in the locker room. Now kids are getting threatened and embarrassed and brutalized online as well - online where we parents aren't necessarily watching over them all the time.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has set up a website to educate tweens and teens on internet safety. NSTeens is just for teens and tweens with comics and videos to watch about keeping themselves safe, what to do about cyberbullying and how much information is too much to share online. The characters in the videos and comics have bios that let them seem more real and personal to kids. Abby, my tween, declared it "cool". Do you really need more of an endorsement than that?

Thanks, MomCentral, for letting us know about this informative website!


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