UNIFIED SCHOOLS OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF LIPA

SAN GUILLERMO ACADEMY

TALISAY, BATANGAS

Should Parents
Monitor Their
Children’s Internet
Use?
21ST century marked the Digital age in the human history and humanity was introduced
to the Internet. It covers every field of specialization today, starting at any information
humanity ever acquired on out to online communication between individuals. Access to
the Internet requires interaction with a computer, that is proved by numerous
researches to be injurious to health in an often use. Usually, it is linked to obesity,
irregular sleep cycles and shorter duration sleep, impaired vision, and loss of social
skills and we should to be anxious about our children’s health. But there are latent and
more dangerous threats the Internet is linked to that we need to protect our children
from.

Protection of the personal information, while you are searching the web, is critically
important, especially while using social networks like Facebook, as it is the most popular
way of communication with other people. Kids often are unaware of what information
should not be shared with an online community, and in doing so, they can incur
themselves to the danger that the internet possesses. Using this information sexual and
other predators can stalk children on the Internet, taking advantage of their innocence,
abusing their trust and, perhaps, ultimately luring them into hazardous personal
encounters. Maybe it would be too harsh to track their activities on the internet, without
them knowing because every individual has a right to privacy, but it is necessary to talk
with children about possible consequences of posting their personal information on the
Internet.
As children grow and spend more time at school, parents are often afraid of them to fall
into bad associations. It happens because they don’t know the difference between right
and wrong; therefore they cannot distinguish a bad company from good. And if
something like that happens there could be a possibility that some of their friends could
be trying to convince them to do drugs, shoplift or do something against family’s moral
code. The better way of dealing with it would be to talk about it in a neutral way, but if
nothing helps to oversee child’s personal messages and to prevent it from happening if
suspicions are satisfied will be a right decision. The more child grows, the less he talks to
his parents about what is going on in his life, about his friends, and where he goes after
school. There may be no need to be worried, as he merely visits the cinema with his
friends and by not telling his parents he tries to state a right of privacy and protect it.
But he also could be bullied and threatened at school and afraid to complain to parents.
More importantly, with the development of the technologies, such harassment can run
on and on any place your child goes and can happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It could be rumors sent by email, mean text messages, emails or posted on social
networks, along with embarrassing images, videos, sites or fake profiles. Whether done
using technology or in person, the effects of bullying are similar: they could be reaching
for alcohol and drugs, or skipping school, or have lower self-esteem, or even health
problems. Whether a child experiences bullying or he is not the object of harassment
but is a bully himself, parents should not make a hasty decision to spy child’s activity on
the internet, as it will make things only worse. The best way is to be comfortably talking
to the kid, asking guiding questions about what is going on in their life and how to
stand up to bullies or why the behavior of harassing other children is not the best to
establish social status.
Children may also unwittingly expose their families to online risks by accidentally
downloading malware. Malware is a computer program that is installed without the
knowledge of permission of the victim with an intention to steal personal data from the
computer like passwords, parent’s bank account, and other sensitive information. This
program downloads and installs onto itself while you are visiting untrusted sites or by
phishing. Phishing is the use of emails that try to trick people into clicking on malicious
links and attachments, usually containing offers of things at a dramatically reduced price
or even for free. With the development of targeted advertising, it became much easier
to guess what an individual is interested in, as it analyzes the browsing history on your
computer. Young people are easy marks for scams because they have not yet learned to
be wary.
The Internet can pose dangers to kids, but it is not the Internet to blame. In fact, it can
open doors of wonder for children that previous generations could not even have
dreamed of. The best foundation for protecting against internet threats is educating
your children and establishing comfortable communication with them fulfilled with trust
and understanding, so they are willing to talk about what is going on in their lives.