Linda didn't become an online child safety expert because she found stalking internet predators a thrilling way to pass the time. She became on online child safety expert because of the four children she had at home.
Linda's Story
"When it comes to internet safety, parents have all the skills they need, even if they don't think they do."
As long as parents understand safety, they have the knowledge to parent through today's digital age. I always say parents don't know how to skateboard, but even though you don't skateboard yourself, you know that your kids need a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, that they shouldn't be doing it in the middle of the road. We know basic safety principles, and those principles just need to be applied online.
There is so much fear-based messaging that leaves parents feeling like, "Wow, unless I am a super whiz on technology, I will never figure this out." Being a whiz on technology, being able to code in C++, doesn't make you safer. Parents should feel empowered and they should know that they are the parent and it takes parenting.
"I am a Momma of the internet generation."
I have two boys and two girls between the ages of 16 and 26. I have sat my kids down and talked to them about internet safety. I have had them roll their eyes at me and think I am a paranoid freak. They certainly have tried all of their tricks, and I have had to sit down and have some difficult conversations. I've had to talk to one son about looking at on-line pornography -- that is one fun conversation for a single mom. He wanted to melt through the floor, and I wanted to melt through the floor as well. But they are necessary conversations. Kids aren't going to want to hear a lot of it, and they are going to protest at times, but it doesn't mean they don't listen.
"It's not popular to take away the internet, but parenting isn't a popularity contest."
I have removed access from different kids at different times when they did not seem to be able to manage well enough in the internet environment. I've had the computers in a public place. When my younger son started blogging, I said, "Let's have some ground rules. If the blog is going to be public, I am going to go through it with you and make sure that you haven't exposed yourself, the house, or the family in any way. If you make it private and restrict who can have access to it, then I am comfortable in not reviewing it in the same way. You can have your secrets with your friends as long as we know it is just with your friends. If it goes broader than that, if it is going to go public, then Mom is going to go through the whole thing."
It was he choice to say, do I want this site public so that mom is patrolling it or do I want it private but accessible to a wide set of friends. We discussed the level of trust and risk trade off. He decided to go with a more private blog, and we discussed who was on it. Parents should say, "I am not here to violate your privacy, but I am here to ensure your safety, so let's sit down and discuss who you're talking to online."
"It has to be an absolute, hard fast rule that a child will never meet an online friend with out talking to their family first."
We know that most kids are only going to meet other kids, but we also know from FBI data that if a child meets a predator, the predator has a 93 percent success rate in abusing the child. It is critically important that children or adults don't go and meet up with new people without having proper safe guards in place. It is great to meet new people, but they have to make sure that those safe guards are in place.
My older son was very active in a chat group about cars, and he wanted to meet and help someone who had a car like his. My son wanted to drive to a city that is about 40 miles away. Of course, all these warning signs went off in my head. I told him that I was going to go with him, and you can imagine how popular that idea was. We negotiated a compromise. He had to keep his cell phone on the whole time, he had to give me the address in advance, and he had to call me as soon as he was there. He also had to let me call him periodically while he was there. My son really wanted to go and help this other person, so we negotiated what that took. That is parenting.
"Using other kids' social networking pages helps keep your kid from feeling attacked or criticized."
Kids social network, that is how they meet that cute guy who is a friend of their cousins, so they should sit down and have a conversation about social networking sites. It is not bad to have a social networking site. When I talk to my kids, I don't start by looking at my child's site. We start by going to other people's sites, so in Myspace we go out together and start looking at profiles. We talk about what is at risk and what is safe about the different sites we come across. Can I see the person's real name? Are they using the suggested nickname? What has this person done that exposes them in pictures or in text or in comments that other people are leaving? You may not realize all the information that a snapshot can convey. As long as we are talking about a third person, it doesn't feel like an attack on the child. Then what I gave my kids 24 hours for them to evaluate and change their site and then we reviewed it.
"Spotting risks, once you have learned it you know it, once you have taught your kids they know it, becomes second nature."
With four kids and two X-Boxes and three TVs, and everyone with a cell phone, it doesn't seem manageable, and the first time through, it is a big undertaking. But so was driving a car. If you remember the first time trying to drive a car, especially if it was manual, you had to look in every direction, you had the clutch, the brake, and you had to look in these damn mirrors and all of the things with trying to learn to drive a car. It was exhausting, but you quickly got the hang of it. It became really automatic.
The internet changes the way you parent only by expanding the number of things you need to watch. You are already watching them cross the street, you are already watching them do other things, you now have to watch and teach them the internet. It is just one more tool. You teach them how to use a knife in the kitchen, and how not to put their thumb where the hammer is going to go. The internet is just one more tool.
"In my career, I've had to deal with the ugliest of the internet. But I've also learned that the internet itself is not a bad thing."
One thing I have on my website is Ask Linda Your Safety Question. A lot of the time people just want to know if their nicknames are okay, so I try to help people protect themselves. That's also what I've done with my book, Look Both Ways: Help Protect Your Family on the Internet, of which 20 percent of the revenue goes to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It's a great thing to teach people how easy it is to be safe.
