The dark side of the web: Why you should know what your children are doing online

It takes wisdom to know the fine line between watching over your children to ensure you keep them safe physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually and smothering them, not giving them freedom and the privacy to be.

However, the realities of the dark side of social media mean that as parents, we need to keep a keen eye on what our children are consuming.

A recent case in the UK involving a 12-year-old boy whose parents were fighting a court’s decision to take him off life support is one of the latest cases to bring to the fore the dangers of social media.

What led the boy into a comma was disturbing.

The boy’s mother found him at their home with a ligature around his neck, in what was a suspected case of a social media challenge gone horribly wrong. The challenge, according to the Guardian, allegedly involves getting users to hold their breath until they pass out due to a lack of oxygen. This was not the first case of a child dying when doing the challenge. A nine-year-old living in the US also died when doing the challenge and her parents sued the social media firm. The company has said it has flagged the challenge.

Children are impressionable and with a new short-lived challenge coming up every other day and the rush for likes, follows and views on social media, young ones (and indeed, even older people) find themselves doing anything to get people to show interest in them.

The unfortunate thing, however, is that the likes, views and follows are very superficial – most people who “like” you on social media, hardly ever really like you in real life and don’t really genuinely care about you.

But tell this to a young, impressionable child and they will think you are trying to curtail their desire to have fun and just be kids and that you are too old school.

So how do you go about maintaining a healthy amount of monitoring of your children?

First, you need to ensure there are open lines of communication between you and your children. Never assume anything.

This applies to all spheres of your child’s life.

Get to know who your children’s friends are. Remember the Good book says that bad company corrupts good morals.

Have your children’s friends over at your house and see what kind of people they hang out with.

For children old enough to have phones, you may need to check in on the kind of apps installed on the phone every now and then and tell them what is and is not acceptable.

When it comes to the rules of engagement when out of the house, be it in a supermarket, mall or elsewhere, let your children know that they shouldn’t entertain idle talk from strangers or accept “sweets” or other things.

There have been many stories of “good” strangers kidnapping children and doing despicable acts as they pretended to be befriending little ones or giving them sweets and other luring items. It might look harsh to treat strangers like suspects, but unfortunately, we are not living in paradise, so it is best to be safe rather than sorry.

All in all, do what seems right to you as a parent.

What safety measures have you put in place to protect your child? Share in the comments section.

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#parenting #motherhood #childsafety #socialmedia