How To Raise And Protect Your Child In The Digital World

In this blogpost I will be sharing on how to raise and protect your child in the digital world.

Navigating digital parenting is something that a lot of parents are worried about. Parents are constantly panicking about all the drama that comes with raising children in this digital world. The truth of the matter is that this is not going to end, we are going to have to deal with this for a long while. When we talk about digital parenting, many of the times people look at it to be separate from parenting. Digital parenting is simply parenting in today\’s world. A lot of people want to shy away from the fact that digital parenting is a thing, but here we are. We need to raise and protect our children in today’s world.

So, the question is” how are we going to be protect our children? What exactly are we doing?

Recently , a parent said to me ” I really do not know what to do with my children as regards the media” Its important you realise that parents who keep an eye on their young children and their teenagers online are referred to as digital parents. You agree with me that many of our children were born with digital devices under their arm and one of the biggest parenting tragedies we have today is what we call the knowledge barriers.

According to research there are three different styles of digital parenting. By reading this blogpost, you will find out which one you are.
There are three different styles of digital parenting;
1.Limiting digital parent.
2.Enabling digital parent.
3.Mentoring digital parent.

Before we delve into what kind of digital parent you are , please answer these question:
•Are You a limiter
•Are you an enabler
or Are you a mentor of your child\’s digital experiences? You need to decide which you are and by the time we are done reading this blogpost you will be able to understand where you are and also understand what you should be doing to help your children even fare better.

1. The Enabling Digital Parents:
   As an enabling digital parent, you believe that a time spent on digital technology, on screen or TV are all learning times. Now what enabler parents do is that; they give their children access to all manner of devices ; it could be a game console, TV, Ipad, Smartphones, all sorts of devices. An enabler parent just thinks that, well ”I am going to give my children access to these devices. There is a lot to learn online and my children should have this access to explore. So, they usually give their children access to be able to take initiative on what to do and what not to do. The enablers do not really understand why a child should be limited with technology, after all they are born in this world. They are tech savvy, just allow them to just be in the tech community.

2. The Limiting Digital Parents:

The idea of the limiting digital parentis the opposite of the Enablers. They have learned about the negative sides of being online, being on screen and they have decided that their children would have none of that after all when they were growing up, they have zero to no access to smartphones. My children are not going to have access and it’s not going to kill them. What they do is to shut down their children from digital technology. Their children do not have access to technology and screens . They have the opinion that limiting them is the best thing that can happen to them.

3.The Mentoring Digital Parent:

The mentoring digital parent is the balance between the enablers and the limiters. The mentoring digital parents are the ones that have the media plan in their homes. There is a plan on what should happen and how it should happen when it comes to media. Now, while both the Limiters and the Enablers do not have any form of guide, even the ones that are say that their children don\’t have access (which is almost unrealistic because your children are going to have access using other places ,limiting them is not your best bet)

Both Limiters and Enablers do not have any plan in place. They are not thinking of teaching their children anything. All they know is well, the internet is here. For the Enablers just go ahead and just have access. For the limiters, no you cannot have access at all. Unfortunately, with these two styles of digital parenting, the children eventually gain access to what happens online and they get confused because there was no plan for the exposure to that world. The family does not believe in parenting with a media plan.

During the pandemic, we came up with the media plan in the Academy, it is called The Family Media Plan. There were a lot of questions that were coming to me. People asked questions like : when should I give my children telephone to use? At what age?

To answer those barrage of questions ,I hosted a live session on our YouTube channel, Click HERE to watch that session.

How To Raise And Protect Your Child In The Digital World:

1. Set Rules For Yourself.
   In the media plan we have a section where you are to state rules and things that must be acceptable to your family per time.
   Things to think about before you post. Is this content appropriate?Set your rules, you may want to avoid partial nudity of shots. This would depend on your family values. In my family , we have a rule where there is no partial nudity of shots of my children , my husband and I anywhere online including swim wears and all of that. It is a decision, It is a rule.
   You can make yours for your family as well.
   Do you want to post full frontal face shots?
   Do you want to post an angle?.
   Are you sharing images with people you know and trust?
   You need to begin to review what it is that you take out there.

2. The Devil Is In The Detail.
Strangers learn more about your children from the single photo that you share. Where they are found during certain hours , the school they attend etc You need to set these rules and understand details.

What details do you want to be out there? I see a lot of people who snap pictures with their children school uniforms, tiny details and by the time I zoom in and you can see the name of their school, you can look at the location, share the location and all of that. Tagging pictures to locations. These are things that you might want to check. And while you might want to share proud moments and all of that, consider not putting in a lot of details those tiny details.
Every digital photograph contains metadata that record time, data, GPS co-ordinates and all of that. Sometimes when I take a picture and don’t want people to know where it is my picture was shared from, I simply screenshot it and share instead. When you screenshot a picture to share, it limits the amount of information that can be gotten from that photograp, it also ensures that the image resolution is low, this lowers the chances of the images being used. This is if you are a family that is conscious about the details that is out there.

3. Ask Before Sharing:
By the time my children became older, when we could have conversations on digital parenting and all of the things that we need to do , I made sure to ask my children if I it was okay to share their picture.

Do you know that there are pictures of our children we have shared that in the next 30 – 40 years, those pictures would not be okay to be online. These children are digital citizens and it is important that we consider these things. When you ask them, it also means that they understand that they cannot just take anybody\’s stuff share , it also gives that respect. Have an open conversation about what they are happy to share and the things that they want you to actually put out there.

Sometimes, I do a video in the home and my children will be the first to say, this is not a video that should go out and because I have taught the.I say things like ”nobody shows anybody this picture”, it is a family picture.We take a lot of pictures in my home, we share pictures on social media as well but we are also very conscious of what it is that we share. So, when your child is old enough ask for permission, this establishes the privacy first mentality. Where you need to set up a healthier relationship with technology.

4. Have An Ongoing Conversation About What Your Children Are Doing Online.
Because we have a media plan that is very rich and reviewed at every point in time, we are able to have an ongoing conversation on technology. What is happening online, what they need to do?
We need to understand some of these things and this would happen according to our family values. Again, this is not me saying that this is how it works in my house come and do it the way it works in my house, No. I am saying you must parent from the place of your value but the question is do you even know what that value is? So, what are they doing online? What is happening? You need to keep track. Know what your child is doing per time.

A parent reached out to me and said, my teenager is always reading books online, I don\’t even know what it is that they are read, I don\’t have the time to even check what it is that they are doing. You are not too sure that is a book that your teenager is reading. Do you know the number of children who are disguised into pornography today? It is very important that we look out for it. No matter the password that you have on any device, without connection you will miss it.

5. Educate Yourself.
I see a lot of parents say, I don\’t really know how these things work, I am not tech savvy, i cant navigate these devices. When you say things like this, your children call you BBT(Born Before Technology) ,they just look at you as someone who cannot even operate a simple smart TV. Do not let your children call you born before technology. Learn how to use tech. Learn how to put a lot of things in perspective as regards the use of technology. If you are teaching a child and you are parenting in the digital world, please note, you cannot do that without first educating yourself. If you don\’t learn, you will make a total mess of your journey. A lot of us do not even know that our children watch porn on our own devices and you can\’t find it. You can\’t find it because you are not even interested. You don\’t even know what to find. You do not even want to understand how to create a media plan. How to create a system in your home. You don\’t want to want to learn. One of the things you owe your child is to learn about their world. Stop telling me that it is not my time, I don\’t know how to use all these things. You are being culturally unintelligent. Cultural intelligence teaches us that we are able to look at the culture of other people and begin to actually learn it. So please stand up today and learn it. You need to educate yourself.

6. Create A family Media Plan.
Your family media plan is what puts everything in perspective. With a family media plan, your children will be able to understand what is acceptable in your home and what is not acceptable when it comes to media.

When my children’s friends are around many of the times and they want to watch something and you hear them say, it\’s not allowed to watch in our home and we don\’t also watch it for now. Because we have a media plan spelled out and have an ongoing conversation on why. We are not just telling our children, this is how, we are telling them, this is why because like I often say, he who knows why is greater than he who knows how. So, if your child only knows your hows, your child will try to understand the why and in the understanding the why, if they have never learnt it, they might mess up the process of the why. So, he who knows why is better than he who knows how. Your media plan is what gives your children the “why” system. Why am I doing this? Why have I been told not to go online alone? That is what your media plan presents to you. And then in that media plan it creates a strategy. It creates a strategy that will help your children understand what it is.

After reading through the Family Media Plan we launched in 2020 A parent reached out to me to say…. \”Hello mam, I have retrieved my daughter\’s phone and apologized to her, we are starting over Wendy! God bless you for writing this guide you don\’t know how many families you have helped!

If you gave your child any gadget without a guide ; please retrieve it and start all over . Get a copy of our Family Media Plan to help and guide you create a plan.

If you are about to hand your teen a phone ; this guide will be the best thing that will happen to you and your teen.

We currently have almost 10,000 parents working with this guide to restructure their media plan.Trust me You will need this as a Parent at any stage of parenting.

Want a Copy of this guide? Simply use link to get your Guide
https://selar.co/FamilyMediaPlan

Are you about to give your child a phone? A gadget? Do they play computer games? Or even Regular Tv? Then you need this guide.We currently have an offer of 25% off so instead of N, 2000 you get this for N1,500 only for a limited Time and this will revert back to N2,000.