Strollerderby : kids on the computer

Forget Thank You, Teach Your Kids Netiquette

JeanneSager — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:33:00 GMT

Your kids finally have down when to say "please" and "thank you?" Looks like it's time for the next round of manners training: how to be polite on the 'net.

South Korea has launched a program in its schools dedicated to teaching little kids to be nice on the 'net. It sounds like they need it.

Not that South Koreans are particularly obnoxious! But according to research, South Korean kids are among the youngest internet surfers in the world. A group called the National Internet Development Agency of Korea, determined that by December 2007, Korea's "internet penetration rate" of people above age six was more than seventy-six percent. The international average is closer to twenty-two percent for kids six and up.

The nation's heads of education have taken a serious look at cyberbullying and its devastating affects on kids (including notable young TV stars who killed themselves after receiving threats online and a teenage girl who hung herself after her appearance on TV about her challenges with weight drew significant amounts of online snark). Here in America, cyberbullying is said to affect at least forty-two percent of our kids who use the internet. Fifty-eight percent of our kids have admitted to having had mean or hurtful things said to them while online. The same number said they didn't bother to tell their parents when it happened.

It seems smart to start the kids young on being respectful and using good manners despite the anonymity of the 'net. But is this something they really need to teach in schools? Check out this video of the little South Korean kids singing netiquette songs:

They're guardian angels to their internet friends, but what about their in-your-face friends?

Via Lemondrop

They Say: Internet's Not Really That Bad for Kids

JeanneSager — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:36:00 GMT

The irony isn't lost on me here - I'm a writer on the Internet, and I get to tell all the folks who run around running down the Internet that somebody just shot a clip full of holes in their argument.

The number one danger to our kids isn't the Internet. It's themselves.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force, formed by the attorneys general in forty-nine states in cooperation with Myspace, Facebook and a number of other Web companies, found kids who surf the Web are at a much lower risk for sexual predators than often reported. Of the kids who did report any type of sexual advances on the Internet, forty-eight percent of those advances reported in 2000 were made by other kids. In 2006, the number was forty-three percent of sexual advances made by kids under the age of eighteen.

Only nine percent of kids who reported having been solicited sexually on the internet in 2006 were actually approached by an adult over the age of twenty-one.

Interesting to note, the report also correlates the online risk to that of kids who are at a heightened risk off of the computer with those at a lower risk off the computer, noting, "Those who are most at risk often engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other parts of their lives."

It only stands to reason - kids who have it ingrained in their heads by their parents not to give out personal information to a stranger at the mall or walk into a dark alley when they're out with their friends would be more likely to be more cautious online, not giving out that same personal information or agreeing to meet with someone in off-line in a private place. As a parent, you have to be able to tell if your kid is a risk taker in a real life, and have suspicion they would live a virtual life on the edge as well.

This is the kind of news I like to see - and not only because I'm a parent. As a teenager, I met the (then teenage) guy who would one day become my husband. It's our dirty little secret! But we were also both teenagers and cautious (by the time we met in person, he was an adult, and he still brough his dad!), and neither of us ever saw anything un-toward - at least not anything we can remember. If some creepy guy talked to me on the internet, I ignored him.

What has made the internet so scary for parents? I'd wager the bet it isn't the teeny, tiny hint of a possiblity that there's a sexual predator out there. It's one less place parents can get to. It's one more time they have to let loose the reins and hope their kids have listened to all they've taught them. And they can't sneak into their rooms and slip their hands under the bed in search of a diary or root around in the drawers for the hidden pack of cigarettes.

This report proves teaching your kids to act appropriately in life and online is all you can. Otherwise, they just might put pics of themselves tea-bagging a guy friend . . . and you'll be hiding your head in shame.

Image: Daily Mail

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U.S. Military Making Virtual Mom and Dad

JeanneSager — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:36:00 GMT

Artificial intelligence will meet military intelligence (as if they're not already one and the same) with a new project aimed at helping kids whose parents are deployed.

The Department of Defense is now accepting ideas for a program that would allow kids to turn on their computer to get parental comfort - even if said parent is nowhere near his or her own computer.

According to the Defense project overview, "The child should be able to have a simulated conversation with a parent about generic, everyday topics. For instance, a child may get a response from saying "I love you", or "I miss you", or "Good night mommy/daddy."

Kids with parents in the military certainly have it tough, especially when Mom and Dad are overseas and in the potential line of fire. But isn't this sort of, well, creepy?

Are kids supposed to think Mom and Dad pre-programmed the computer, to feel like they're really getting that "I love you" from a parent? Can a machine offer anything near the comfort of a real-live parent, albeit one halfway around the world typing on Instant Messenger or posting to their Myspace?

Image/Source: Med Gadget

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Say Hi To Grandma Through the Screen

JeanneSager — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:28:00 GMT

My three-year-old likes to show her grandparents her nursery school projects. Too bad they're in Virginia, and we're in New York. Seeing a construction paper elephant is a tough job when you're looking through a phone line. We're still working on that.

But if an article in yesterday's New York Times is any indication, there may soon be a nation of toddlers who never have to use adjectives to tell Grandma about their new artistic creations. Grandma and Grandpa have gone digital so they can keep up with their grandkids living half a world away.

With half of American grandparents living at least two hundred miles from their grandchildren (according to the AARP) and two-thirds of kids seeing at least one set of grandparents only once a year, Web cams are stepping into the void to make sure kids feel that family connection. Some parents even use on-screen Grandma as a remote babysitter, setting their kids up in front of the computer to chat while they get some work done around the house.

With my in laws living so far away, their biggest fear seems to be that my daughter will forget them. They once handed me a picture of them - so she doesn't forget us, they said. We make sure that doesn't happen with weekly phone calls, and we bring them up in regular conversation. She runs to them when they arrive just as quickly as she does my parents, who live across town and talk to her on the phone even more often (what can I say, my side of the family tends to have bigger mouths!). We haven't purchased a Web cam yet, but it is a temptation. My in-laws will want to see the first loose tooth, the First Communion dress. A photographer by trade, I take pictures of these things, but I don't always have the energy to actually get them online and e-mailed four states away.

One expert quoted in the article said she worries grandparents will get too hooked on what technology offers; that they'll be tempted to visit less because they've already "seen" the grandkids. I kind of doubt it. The kind of grandparent who would power up their computer just to get a look at that cute little monkey is the kind of grandparent who would be there in a heartbeat . . . if they could.

A kid bouncing around in front of a camera has nothing on a kid wrapping their arms around you.

Image: New York Times

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