Parents: Be There for Your Children … or the Internet Will

Kids ask tons of questions, don’t they? Why is the grass green? Why do you have to go to work every day? What is sex? Where do babies come from? Kids ask these and a seemingly endless number of other questions every day.

In the pre-Internet days, children asked these questions of their parents. They might ask some questions of their teachers and their friends, but since they were around their parents most of the time, that’s who they asked.

Even the best parents will admit this is sometimes tiring. The questions never seem to stop. Fortunately, this is a good sign. It means your child wants to grow in knowledge. He wants to learn about the world and his surroundings. This is a good thing.

When this is bad is when you’re not around for your child enough, and he turns to the Internet for his answers without getting you involved.

Now don’t get me wrong here. The Internet is a wealth of information. You no doubt have some child protective filters on your kid’s tablet or smartphone. They can only access certain sites. That’s good.

Even if you provide your child with a safe web surfing experience, a lot of problems can develop if you aren’t there to help him understand the search results he gets.

Don’t Fight the Internet, Complement It

You are never going to be as readily available as your child’s phone, tablet or laptop. That’s unfortunately the truth. Your kids are constantly staring at some type of internet-enabled display. To be honest, it’s great that children now have access to a wealth of information that wasn’t available for instant access just a few decades ago.

This isn’t to say that you should remove all consumer electronics from your child’s life. You would create a young person that was detached from today’s societal reality. What you want to do is teach your child how to use the Internet and World Wide Web responsibly.

Tell him the next time he performs a web search about some topic or question that’s important to him, you want to be there. Help him understand that there are tons of opinions that will be offered to answer just about any question. Then show him that if there are multiple answers for a question online, a lot of those answers will be incorrect.

Make Yourself Available for Questions

Provide your input. Tell him that you’ll always be a text message or telephone call away if he needs to ask a question. You need to be as available as the “always on” Internet for your child.

This can be tough. You already have so much on your plate. So what do you do?

You want to be that dream parent that raises the perfect child and gives your kid the greatest chance at enjoying a fulfilling, rewarding and successful life. You can’t do that if you reinforce the idea in your child’s mind that you are not a source to turn to for important information.

By the way, you don’t have to have all the answers. All you have to do is show your child that you love him enough to help.

Let him know there are people online that can cause them harm. Show him how the Internet is not always a source of reliable information. Then show him where to come up with dependable information, and work to always be there when he has a question.