Understand Your Child's Technology

McAfee, the computer security company, recently conducted a study involving children’s computer activity.  Among many of the things they found and posted on their blog, perhaps the most alarming is 71% of teens hide their online activity from their parents, up from only 45% in 2010.  Meanwhile, 45% of parents believe their kids tell them everything, so there is a large gap of parents who believe they know what their child is doing while the child is hiding what they're doing.  Perhaps the scariest of the results is 12% of teens meeting someone in person that they met online.  

There are programs out there that allow you to spy on your kids while they use the computer, but this can create more problems than you might already have.  For starters, if your child is already more tech savvy than you, there's a good chance they will be able to detect the spying program and possibly even deactivate it.  It creates a feeling of betrayal and mistrust.  One of the tactics of internet predators is to drive a wedge between a teen and their parent, to create more trust in them than they have in you.  Once that happens, it becomes easier to negotiate an in-person meeting.  It also closes down lines of communication you could be using to make sure your child is safe.  Instead, you want to build a foundation of trust with your child, that way they know they can come to you when they have a problem.

One of the things you can do is take the time to have at least a base understanding of what they're doing.  You don't need to be actively using Facebook or any other social network, but try to be a bit familiar with it.  Many parents will have their child accept a friend request, but they may not know that the child can also block their parent from seeing posts.  Treat it as you would any other social interaction with your child.  You wouldn't hover over them when they have friends over so you shouldn't comment on every post they make online.  Even if you don't use Facebook often, check in from time to time to see if anything has changed.  Social networks like Google+ have incorporated video chats now as well so the interactions your child can have online are expanding.

If all else fails, simply ask them.  Predators take the time to get to know your kids so you should too..  If you don't take the time to build a foundation of trust and communication between you and them, you're not going to get anything.