The Challenges Facing The 21st Century Parent

by: RussellM.Stewart
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Word Count: 1160

Being a parent has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. When we were children it all looked so easy, and we constantly criticised our own parents for making disastrous mistakes, all of which we swore we'd never make if and when we ever got to be parents ourselves. So here we are, making whole reams of mistakes of our own, and finding that whatever we think is the right thing to do, our children, or our children's friends have other ideas. We look at other parents, who seem to manage fine, and then we look at our own mess and wonder what went wrong. Being a parent is very much like being up a creek without a paddle, and the boat's leaking. Each day seems another battle has to be won.

One aspect in particular which has worried parents today, and which was not an issue back in the days when we were children, is the advent and proliferation of computers and other technologies which allow our children to meet, interact and communicate online with people from all over the world, and to spend hours glued to a screen focussing entirely on moving bunches of pixels from one place to another in a desperate attempt to do strange things like finish the 'Quest of The j'Graa Goblet' or seek out Lord Krakticka to pwn him with the rest of the guildies. If this means nothing to you, then join the club - it's a big club, with a growing number of members.

Parents aren't idiots - we're most of us quite capable of working a computer, typing up a letter, creating a graph and sending off some emails, but computers seem to have a whole other world built in to them that leaves many of our generation reeling at the prospect. For those of us who shred our telephone and gas bills before binning them, and always ask to see the identity card of the man standing at our doorstep wanting to read our meter, the idea of happily posting your most intimate details on a worldwide system for the entire world to see and do what they like with is awful. Whilst having friends all over the world sounds appealing, having friends we have never met and are never likely to challenges our understanding of what friends are. Just because you hang out in Doom Forest killing dwarves from the opposite faction each evening doesn't, in our traditional book, constitute a friendship.

Few of us can have missed the numerous stories on the news about children who go missing after meeting up with someone on the internet. The statistics are grim, and the reality is clearly that there are predators who use the internet as a way of accessing children. It's easy to view the computer as the problem, as the cause of danger, and the temptation is to remove its presence from the home entirely.

Most of us realise, however, that it isn't the computers which are evil, and the vast majority of people on the internet are perfectly decent individuals. Yes, it's true that there are risks associated with using the internet, but then there are dangers associated with almost everything in life. We could go down to the shopping mall and be blown up by terrorists, or we could take a plane on our next holiday and die in a horrendous crash, or we be knocked down and trampled by a donkey. Every day we take risks, and yet most of us seem to survive them. Clearly this is because we take calculated risks, and use common sense to judge the dangers, and act accordingly. Clearly getting in to a plane held together by sticky tape would be absurd, and crossing the road blindfolded would also be liable to come with far greater risk. Similarly, using the internet is only a danger if you either have no idea what the risks are, or simply ignore them and effectively cross the road blindfold every time you log on, or allow your children to.

It's important, therefore, that we appreciate what the real risks are when using the internet, because the more we know and understand what the real risks and dangers are, the better we can help inform and advise our children. If we allow them to take advantage of the incredible technologies that surround us, but hold their hand through the learning stages, then we are all far more likely to come out the other side unscathed. If you can understand more about chat rooms, messenger clients, profiles and online games, then there will be more of a chance to chat with our children about what they are doing. We all accept, I'm sure, that we can't ban them from living in the 21st century, and so we have to accept that, just as we had to learn the dangers of the road, which was not an issue back in our own parents' or grandparents' days, our children have to be taught the dangers of life on the digital highway.

We spend time as parents teaching our children about 'stranger danger', and make sure they understand not to interact with anyone they don't know. They have it drummed in to them from an early age that they should not talk to strangers, go off with them, accept lifts or sweets or invitations, and that if they suspect anything is wrong, run back home or to safety straight away and tell someone. This same policy and understanding is often lacking online. The strangers are still there, most of whom are perfectly decent, but many are sadly using the anonymity of the internet to hide behind fake profiles. Our children understand about strangers in the street or park. But online, people aren't strangers. They have photos, names, hobbies, backgrounds, families and favourite music. The fact that these profiles may be entirely fake seems to pass our children by.

Possibly you may already be aware of the fact that there is a wealth of security software available for parents. These enable you to lock down and protect your computer, installing filters and logs, restrictions and blocking tools, guards and scanners, but to be honest most of this will simply cause our children to be ever more curious about what really is on the other side of the wall you've built. We were children once, and we know that the first thing you want to do if told not to look over the wall, is to look over the wall, and most children are smart enough to work out a way of getting past the security. A far more effective way of supporting and protecting them is to communicate with them. To have the computer somewhere publically visible so that you can see what they're doing, share an interest, and talk with them, is far better than trying to lock everything down and then running away to pretend the dangers will go away.

About the Author

There are many parents blogs on the internet and some provide very useful information on everything to do with kids. From advice on illness, nightmares, education and much more. Take a look, from kids to teens, interesting reading.  

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