At a recent Toronto seminar about teenagers and the Internet, it was the slide reading “Oblivious Parents” that received the most knowing nods from an audience of Canadian teachers, police officers and government representatives.
As individual school boards and government institutions across the country ratchet up their efforts to warn kids about posting fights on YouTube and flirting with strangers on webcams, experts say parents are failing to support the message at home.
Like moms and dads who refuse to acknowledge that their kids are sexually active or are experimenting with drugs, many adults have not explored the world their kids inhabit online. And the growing information gap makes it difficult for them to protect or discipline their kids.
“Parents either don't know, don't care or don't want to know,” says Arni Stinnissen of the Ontario Provincial Police. “The piece that's missing in all this is the parents. They haven't had that talk.”
Instead, parents are relying on schools to teach children about the birds and bees of online responsibility, ignoring studies that show risky behaviour is greatly reduced in households that have rules for Internet use.
“It is important that adults take the time to be familiar with technology,” says Jason Montgomery, director of Kids Help Phone. “That they develop rules and safety strategies with their kids.”
Kids Help Phone released a poll in April that showed 69 per cent of young people who bully each other online said they do so because there is no supervision.
Parents have little excuse for being unaware of how serious the consequences of Web activities can be, experts say. School boards across the country are doing their part by hiring professional speakers and police liaisons to address parent council meetings.
Those efforts just got a boost, with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announcing that he would give $1-million to a software training program called Cyber-Cops Air Dogs, which uses interactive games to educate Grade 7 and 8 students about the Web. And the province may also amend the Education Act so students who bully each other online can be expelled.
School boards still need parents to buy in, educators say. Quentin D'Souza, a resource teacher for the Toronto Catholic District School Board, believes parents should be role models for Internet behaviour, but says they have a lot of catching up to do.
“If you were going driving, would you take advice from someone who doesn't drive?” he says. “You can discipline them about the phone because you've used the phone.”
Mr. D'Souza regularly organizes resource evenings for parents at his school so they can learn about the Internet sites kids visit. “At the last one, two people showed up,” he said. “I set up 100 seats.”
Parents need to take steps such as signing up for their own social networking pages so they can participate in their children's world, says Rob Nickel, a former Ontario police officer who has been lecturing professionally on Internet safety since 2004.
“Don't blame MySpace,” he says. “They have to get more involved with what their kids are doing online.”
Mr. Nickel tours the country almost full-time, attending safe-school conventions and teacher conferences. He's also pitching a TV show to educate parents on Internet safety.
Talking to kids is the easy part of his job, as he can show them how information posted on Facebook would allow him to track their location. He says most kids quickly understand the risks.
He encourages parents to Google their kids' names and learn the language of instant messaging in which many young people communicate.
“So if the kid says, ‘I was on MSN,' they're not like, ‘What the hell is MSN?'” he said. “You have to sit down and figure it out.”
