Parents need to be aware of what their children do online: Activist

Nothing works better than making the child understand the importance of quality content, make them aware of the traps, cyber bullying etc.

We were at a school reunion. Some of our friends decided to bring their little children. And we noticed something - even when the kids were presented with the view of the ocean, they were too preoccupied to enjoy it. They were eager to get back to their gadgets.

Nothing works better than making the child understand the importance of quality content, make them aware of the traps, cyber bullying etc. (Representative Photo)

The parents wore a guilty look. We assured them how it is the story at many houses these days. Let us face it. Haven’t we all given the child an extra 10 minutes of gadget time or one more episode on television, so we can clear out a few more emails from the inbox or get something else done in peace? Well , trust me, this article is relevant to you, only if you answered that with a big YES.

My husband and I love technology and we always knew that our son would be using it from a young age. And our concern has always been ‘how much’? We often heard from our friends how even some tech moghuls denied access to smart gadgets to their children. We won’t contest that decision but it was our decision to raise our son a conscious digital citizen. We were weary of two things from the beginning – the amount of screen time [has been increasing with age] and safety & relevance of the content

To ensure these, we created a few ground rules and we also had to do a few checks from our end;

The first and foremost rule in parenting is to ‘lead by example’. Whoever said you can do whatever you want when you grow up! We limit our device usage when we are home especially after Junior gets back from school. No devices on the dining table.

Secondly, Junior can use his laptop during the week for his homework/research only. He gets 45 minutes of gaming and 1 hour of programming during weekends. Most of these gaming websites/apps are chat-enabled. Also, the understanding is, junior cannot download apps or log into any website without prior permission.

Identify online activities that can be engaging and can have a positive influence on the children. When I saw junior was a lot into gaming, I introduced him to programming. Today, he loves programming so much that once again we had to bring in the weekend rule. But I am glad that he is now shooting less and doing something more constructive.

It is imperative to find engaging offline activities. It could be a new hobby, sport or skill. It was basketball classes for my son. My friend’s daughter, a teenager, benefitted from joining drama classes.

Nothing works better than making the child understand the importance of quality content, make them aware of the traps, cyber bullying etc. Especially as they grow up, its easier to talk to them and help them understand ‘why the rules’.

Lastly, it is important to prepare the kids on what to do when something unexpected happens online. They should be encouraged to talk to you about it.

Today, it has become imperative to take care of the digital well being of the family. Our children get easily influenced by their peers. It may be helpful to initiate these conversations with other parents as well. But the best possible way is to empower our children with knowledge and information to help them use the technology right and benefit from it. Technology evolve at a rapid pace and so do the challenges. We as parents, need to be aware of what our children do online and keep a check on it.

(An advocate of women’s rights, Neela Kaushik started a Facebook community called Gurgaon Moms to create a local support network for mothers in the city. Today, it has more than 25,000 members)