MomCentral review: NSTeens.org
[Note: This post is part of my participation in Mom Central, "a one-stop web resource dedicated to providing busy moms with smart household and parenting solutions." In exchange for my honest thoughts on a free sample of NSTeens, an offshoot of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's NetSmartz website, I will receive a $20 Amazon.com gift card.]
A testimony to my affinity for sharing too much information online will live forever (sans the animated .gifs I was so fond of), via the Wayback Machine. It included pictures of my ultrasound while pregnant with my oldest child and even .wav files of his heartbeat. I later had a full-blown website with my name as the domain, with page after page of family photos, opinions and musings on life in my city; at one point, we had a webcam for people to take a sneak peek at our living room. Heck, I met the kids' father online, and met their stepfather the same way!
All this to say, I don't scare easily when it comes to the Internet. I don't think it's a threat to life as we know it, even though it probably would have kept me from graduating from college, and I think the risk to children, when compared to the risks they face every day, is frequently overblown in the media. But I also think that many parents don't have a clue what their kids are up to, online or otherwise, and that *is* a problem.
I've read stories lately about how not as many teens are having sex as we think and fewer teens are going out and getting high; that probably has a lot to do with our wired culture and how it's easier to interact in the online world than the real world. As a mom who shares custody of her children, I worry more about the people who gain my children's trust then take advantage of it than complete strangers. (A great book for learning what truly is a danger: Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane).) In the online world, someone can quickly become a person you "know" and therefore let down your guard with. NSTeens has comics and videos starring a cast of teenage characters that just about any teen could relate to; the site also has a cool look that doesn't scream parent paranoia. Depending on your relationship with your teen, the vignettes can serve as a conversation starter or a "Hey, check this out" email.
I've already had discussions with my children, using the news stories and personal experiences as a springboard, about how what you post in a MySpace or Facebook profile can haunt you. Humans have always had to live with the potential for fallout from our pre-adult choices, but I shudder to think that the ideas and opinions I had when I was a know-it-all teenager might have ended up forever saved by Google and easily located by a search for my name. Children need to know the risks of letting it all hang out online, not for their immediate safety so much as their long-term reputation.
NSTeens also tackles cyber-bullying, which is a burgeoning issue that many schools and parents are ill-equipped to deal with, and is probably my biggest concern as my kids get to an age where they'll be using social media. For many of us nerds, who grew up bullied and marginalized, our survival stories may not add up to much when someone can create a Facebook group for the sole purpose of denigrating a person s/he despises. I especially like the Real Life Stories section, which covers the range of ways teens can experience bullying or be vulnerable to predators. I'd recommend NSTeens to anyone with 'tweens or teens who are venturing past game portal websites; it's a big online world out there.
A testimony to my affinity for sharing too much information online will live forever (sans the animated .gifs I was so fond of), via the Wayback Machine. It included pictures of my ultrasound while pregnant with my oldest child and even .wav files of his heartbeat. I later had a full-blown website with my name as the domain, with page after page of family photos, opinions and musings on life in my city; at one point, we had a webcam for people to take a sneak peek at our living room. Heck, I met the kids' father online, and met their stepfather the same way!
All this to say, I don't scare easily when it comes to the Internet. I don't think it's a threat to life as we know it, even though it probably would have kept me from graduating from college, and I think the risk to children, when compared to the risks they face every day, is frequently overblown in the media. But I also think that many parents don't have a clue what their kids are up to, online or otherwise, and that *is* a problem.
I've read stories lately about how not as many teens are having sex as we think and fewer teens are going out and getting high; that probably has a lot to do with our wired culture and how it's easier to interact in the online world than the real world. As a mom who shares custody of her children, I worry more about the people who gain my children's trust then take advantage of it than complete strangers. (A great book for learning what truly is a danger: Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane).) In the online world, someone can quickly become a person you "know" and therefore let down your guard with. NSTeens has comics and videos starring a cast of teenage characters that just about any teen could relate to; the site also has a cool look that doesn't scream parent paranoia. Depending on your relationship with your teen, the vignettes can serve as a conversation starter or a "Hey, check this out" email.
I've already had discussions with my children, using the news stories and personal experiences as a springboard, about how what you post in a MySpace or Facebook profile can haunt you. Humans have always had to live with the potential for fallout from our pre-adult choices, but I shudder to think that the ideas and opinions I had when I was a know-it-all teenager might have ended up forever saved by Google and easily located by a search for my name. Children need to know the risks of letting it all hang out online, not for their immediate safety so much as their long-term reputation.
NSTeens also tackles cyber-bullying, which is a burgeoning issue that many schools and parents are ill-equipped to deal with, and is probably my biggest concern as my kids get to an age where they'll be using social media. For many of us nerds, who grew up bullied and marginalized, our survival stories may not add up to much when someone can create a Facebook group for the sole purpose of denigrating a person s/he despises. I especially like the Real Life Stories section, which covers the range of ways teens can experience bullying or be vulnerable to predators. I'd recommend NSTeens to anyone with 'tweens or teens who are venturing past game portal websites; it's a big online world out there.