FAMILY TIP SHEET

Common Sense on Digital Life

What’s the Issue?

We may think of our children’s’ online, mobile, and technological activities as “digital life,” but to them it’s just life. In their world, being able to connect and communicate 24/7 from just about any location is normal – and expected! Between Reception and Class 6, children go through rapid growth in learning about many topics, including digital media technologies. From playing games on their mum or dad’s mobile phone, to learning how to point and click a mouse, to navigating online by themselves, children this age are participating in a connected culture.

Why Does It Matter?

Young children need to learn early how to make good choices so they can take advantage of the powerful technologies available to them. And to make these good choices, children need parental guidance.

The stakes are high because our children’s’ technological abilities can be greater than their maturity and judgment. Having unrestricted access to information and people can result in gaining a wealth of information and experiences. But it can also mean accessing inappropriate content and making inappropriate contact with others. The difference between a great experience and a dubious one lies in the decisions children make. Just as children learn to eat properly, swim safely, or drive a car carefully, they need to know how to live in the digital world responsibly and respectfully. Their ultimate success depends on their abilities to use digital media to create, collaborate, and communicate well with others. Those who master these skills in using digital tools will benefit from the digital world’s awesome power.

Common sense says

Use bookmarks and safe search. Teach your child to bookmark his or her favourite sites. This way, your child is less likely to go somewhere online you don’t want. Use safe search options on Web browsers, such as Google or Bing, to make sure your child can search safely.

Consider using filtering and blocking software. Some parents find these tools to be useful to help protect younger children from accessing inappropriate content.

Have older siblings help. Have your older children help teach your younger children how to be responsible and safe online. Let the older ones know that you want them to help you protect their little brothers or sisters online.

Share wisdom. Children often don’t understand the implications of their actions. But we do. So we have to remember to extend our basic parenting wisdom to the digital world. We teach children to choose their words carefully, play nicely with others, and respect their teachers. Now we have to extend those lessons to a vast, invisible world.

Pass along your values. As a parent, you can translate your values into the digital world and help children understand the implications of their actions. Oftentimes the same rules that apply in the real word apply online, such as “be nice to others,” “don’t say mean things,” and “think critically about information.”

Seek balance. It’s hard to know how much freedom to give children. We want them to explore, enjoy, communicate, and create. We also want to be sure they are protected. If our children are going to thrive with digital media, we must balance the negative with the positive, privacy with protection. As our children grow, they need more independence and privacy. But parents have to be sure their children know how to be safe and responsible before letting them loose.

Keep an open mind. We don’t see the world the way our children do. And we don’t help our children when we judge their lives through the lens of a non-digital world. It’s important for us to understand that our children will spend much of their lives in a connected world, where everyone creates and communicates. We need to help them to enjoy it and learn from it.

DIGITAL LITERACY AND CITIZENSHIP IN A CONNECTED CULTURE © 2012

www.commonsense.org