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(Digital) Parenting Basics

Little gamersThese are only suggestions, because you know what works best at your house. Other people’s suggestions, of course including these, need your inputs—your family’s values and priorities and your children’s. Because social media is a reflection of the social lives and circles of people of all ages, it’s embedded in our everyday lives (to the extent we use it, of course).

So the “social” basics below are as much about offline social as the online parts. They’re the suggested bones of a family contract or just family discussions. The “safety” basics are just that: the bare-bones essentials that need to be communicated to children from the moment we put connected devices in their little hands. 

SAFETY

  1. Whether in chat, a game, an app, a site, anywhere, never share your or anyone’s personal info (incl. photos/videos) without their (or my) permission – no full name, phone no., address, passwords.
  2. Only let ppl you know offline – friends from school, family friends, relatives, etc. – follow you or get listed in your phone Contacts or “friends lists” online.
  3. If you see something online that upsets you, or if someone does/says/shows something to you that bothers you, pls come to me so I can help you with it.
  4. For gamers: Consider playing only with your friends (in offline life), but if someone you don’t know joins you in a game, just make sure game chat is only about the game and about nothing personal, ever. [BTW, an awful lot of gaming (Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, etc., etc.) is social media too….]

SOCIAL

  1. As a member of this family, you know what’s kind/right/good and what isn’t – this is true anywhere, online or offline – and this is what we always try to be and do as members of this family. If you’re not sure if something is kind/right/good, let’s talk about it.
  2. Make it your own rule never to do/say anything to anyone, anywhere, that you would not want them to do/say to you.
  3. If you make a mistake and things go bad, that’s ok—mistakes happen—but talk with me so I can help you work out what to do. I promise I won’t do anything about it myself without talking with you first.

For further reading

  • True safety: “The media siege mentality: Antidote for parents”
  • About “screen time”: “Screens kids use,” Part 1: “Everywhere and ‘irrelevant'” and Part 2: “Research turning a corner”
  • A child and a parent walking the (digital citizenship) talk (as co-authors)
  • About lots of things: “6 takeaways from 20 years of Net safety,” Part 1 and Part 2
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Anne Collier


Bio and my...
2016 TEDx Talk on
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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Founded as a nonprofit public service in 1999, NetFamilyNews quickly became the “community newspaper” of a vital interest community of subscribers in more than 50 countries. Site and newsletter became a blog in the early 2000s. Nowadays, you can subscribe in the box to the right to receive articles in your in-box as they're posted – or look for tweets, posts on our Facebook page, and key commentaries from Anne on her page at Medium.com. She welcomes your comments, follows and shares!

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