A high-profile task force formed last year to study dangers young people face on the Internet has found that fears of sexual predators are overblown and that technology alone won't keep children safe.
Every once in a while one of these stories comes out telling us that technology - whether it is nanny programs or parental settings or television programming in general - can't keep kids safe. That is to say: Technology will do nothing to replace good old fashioned parenting.
I have a twelve-year-old daughter. She does not have a computer. She does not have a cell phone. When she uses one of our laptops it is in plain view, not alone in her room. We talk to her about drugs and sex and sexual predators and have developed an open verbal relationship about all these topics. We are not perfect parents, but we are involved and draw boundaries based on responsibility and maturity.
People need to stop whining about how technology still falls too far from Rosie the robot in substituting for actual, personal parenting. If you don't have time to be a parent, you are doing something wrong.
Raising and protecting a child is #1. Maybe what some parents need is a computer program or call service to remind them of that fact. Technology does that quite well.
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