You Can’t Stop Online Harassment
How can parents and/or educational institutions help guard against online harassment of their children/students?
You can’t have the Internet without online harassment. Like a packaged deal, as long as you have one the other will follow.
In my opinion, there is nothing that anyone can do to stop online harassment — not parents, educational institutions or even law enforcement. The only thing you can do for children is educate them — because ultimately they are the ones that need to be able to recognize the signs that something isn’t right. Children need to be able to make decisions for themselves both online and in the real world but can’t if they’ve been sheltered from what’s out there.
If you google “online harassment advice for parents” you’ll find yourself with over 2 million results. Reading through a few of the websites listed on the first page recommended tips included everything from blocking certain websites, getting the passwords to your child’s accounts, even installing tracking software to see what websites they’ve been on. If this advice doesn’t scream “lack of trust” for you then I don’t know what does.
I might not be a parent, but it wasn’t long ago that I was first using social media on my family’s shared desktop computer and it bothers me that people think these are viable solutions. Doesn’t it make more sense for parents and educational institutions to embrace social media so they can teach children more than just “what not to do online” ?
Further exploring what google had to offer, a number of articles went on to mention communication as the key to a healthy relationship with the internet. This includes having an open- non judgemental dialogue as well as expressing an actual interest in your kids online activity (something I agree with much more than spying).
For the past 9 years of my life I’ve been on social media. It all started with Facebook in 2008 when I had to beg my parents for months to let me join. The website had only just started to gain popularity with my age group so understandably they were reluctant for me to have an account. Earlier this week I asked them what the deciding factor was and this is what they responded with this:
“With or without permission we knew you’d get it eventually — so we figured you may as well use it with us knowing. Plus we were confident you knew about stranger danger enough not talk to people you didn’t know and if something happened you would likely come to us for help.”
While I’ve been lucky enough not to encounter the dark side of the internet I know not everyone else is the same. Lots of children, teens even adults experience online harassment and no tracking software or blocked websites will stop it. Considering the internet isn’t going away anytime soon it seems like a good idea to educate children to make the right decisions and give them the tools to maneuver online harassment. By teaching children the right skills to respond to certain situations online, they would have a greater chance to become safe, responsible and trustworthy social media users.
