Common-Sense Approach Missing from Child Internet Safety

In all other aspects of life, adults use their common sense and 'street smarts' to teach kids how to be safe and prevent trouble. Usually, adults realize they also need to watch over children to make sure they stay out of trouble. These are tried-and-true methods which every adult employs quite naturally. I am alarmed that public concerns about Internet safety have not yet focused on these basics of adult supervision and child education.

Both formal and informal preventive education have always played an important role in safety. From the time children are very small, adults train them about keeping safe. We teach them how to cross the street, not get burnt by a hot stove, and how to keep safe around water by teaching them water safety skills. It is also common to give teens driver's education to help them be safer drivers. Yet, most adults' natural instincts to guide and supervise children are being forgotten when it comes to Internet safety.

Internet safety is primarily a parenting and teaching job, not a technological problem to be solved. Since very often parents and teachers know less about the Internet than do the children they supervise on a day-to-day basis, adults may feel overwhelmed and withdraw when it comes to anything computer-related. This means that adults may fail to offer the 'street smarts' and worldliness which children lack and so vitally need to learn for their Internet safety.

Adults need to be reminded they already have important skills and experience to help children be safer on the Internet. Compared to the care and attention required to parent or teach, the extra information adults need to learn so they can adapt their savvy to the Internet is really the lesser challenge.

But a lack of emphasis on education and supervision means that the only tools available will remain the ones which are simply inadequate for the job. While SurfSmart! maintains that new laws and intelligent blocking programs can be useful tools if employed properly, I don't believe these alone are sufficient to create safety for children on the Internet. As long as there is little or no preventive education and inadequate adult supervision, danger will have the upper hand.

©1998 Deborah Bier