- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 2
-
Sparkle (0)
I remember when I was in elementary school, one of the highlights of the school year was our spring field trip-walking up to the Brooklyn Union Gas Company on Montague Street. The students would line up along the street facing the windows and press our noses to the glass so we could see the chicken eggs in their giant oval incubators. Some of the eggs were already broken and small baby chickens were hopping around. Others were still trying to break free from their shells and still others were just sitting there with nary a crack. Our teacher would stand behind each group of 6 and she would tell us what was going on in each of the incubators. Fast forward a few years and kids are still learning about how eggs incubate. Only for my son, it wasn't his teacher who wound up over his shoulder explaining what he was looking at, it was me.
Last spring my 3rd grader sprang off the school bus and bounded into the house. He made a bee line to the computer and asked if he could look some stuff up for school. I asked him what he wanted to find online, he told me he wanted to find information about baby chickens incubating like the ones that were in the incubator in his classroom. I told him that was "Fine." and he asked "Can I go on YouTube?" Sure I told him. I was sitting at my own computer about 3 feet away when I heard my son ask aloud, "Why is that there?" I thought his comment sounded a bit unusual, so I popped out of my chair and over to his desk to see for myself. Scantily clad women is what we were both seeing! Nothing pornographic, but not what I would consider apppropriate for 8 year old eyes either. My son admitted his own confusion, "Mom, I was looking for the chickens and this is what came up. I don't get it."
I quickly figured out it was his search term that had garnered the, um, interesting video selection. He had used the word "Chicks." So I explained to him what had happened. Told him that some words have meanings he may not yet know, and YouTube hadn't been able to understand he was looking for videos of birds. If you had asked me if YouTube would have been the way my son learned about the word "chick" I don't think I would have been able to predict that little life lesson.
Deirdre in her post, "Kids Online, Helping them Stay Safe," shared her own take on how she approaches the unexpected with her own son:
As for protecting Ross from others' evil intentions, the best defense for any kid is to know how to react wisely to whatever comes up.
Very sensible. I totally agree. We've got to teach our kids how to use the 'net. Reacting wisely makes total sense, however it may not be a parents' first instinct the first time you are faced with certain images or words being barfed all over the kids by a hate site. That first experience can make us lose our shit be worrisome. However these things do pop up unexpectedly. Literally. And our kids can learn from our own mistakes too.
I had a situation earlier this year when I was trying to find sporting equipment for my son. In my post over at DC Metro Moms "Perhaps I'm the one who needs Net Nanny" I described what happened when I had both kids looking over my shoulder as I thought I was typing in the address for Dicks Sporting Goods. Oh yay! Hero to Zero in just one click.
While it may make us queasy to even consider the impact of what an unexpected site may reveal to our kids, there is some prep work we can do in order to prepare ourselves so that we can take a walk on the wise side. Even if you have the most protected computer in your entire area code, there will come a time when your kids will see something you wish they hadn't. It could be content you consider unsuitable for their age or inappropriate for anyone regardless of their chronology. It's almost inevitable. And banning your child from sleepovers isn't going to stop it from happening.
Vanessa over at Radical Parenting, has a guide she developed to help parents talk to their kids about the Internet. I like how Vanessa links talking about the Internet in the same way I recommend parents discuss sex with their kids.
"The Internet talk is
