Parenting has never been simple and the advancement of technology has made it more complicated. Today, we have smartphones, tablets, laptops and many digital devices that keep our children engaged and quiet. Though, keeping kids busy may give you time to prepare meal but it can have worst impact on your kid’s physical health, mental health, psychological health, behavior and social skills.
Our kids are becoming addict to screens and it includes mobile phone screens, computer and television screens. Parents leave their kids alone with these screens to seek time for executing their household chores. We give tablets to our kids who are merely 2 or 3 years old so they could learn or let us have some leisure time. The digital technologies have started acting as digital babysitters calming our kids and keeping them engaged. However, this latest technology can expose our kids to several threats. This article discusses the potential dangers of digital devices that we can make our kids to face.
Not Giving Enough Time to Kids
In this digital age, we are fully occupied by technology having no time for family and physical activities. When parents fail to give enough time to their children, the kids start finding support somewhere else. They look for someone to be consoled and they are more likely to be exposed to predators in this quest. The kids who spend most of their time on social networking platforms are more likely those whose parents do not give them proper attention and time.
Leave Bullying Stuff Unsupervised
The online bullying is one of the most common online threats that have influenced many younger children. Our kids are likely to receive harassing calls, humiliating comments on social media posts, offensive emails or offending messages from bullies. The odds of cyberbullying increase when parents do not monitor their kids’ mobile phone and computer use. This happens mostly when you act as step parent and leave your kid alone with the dangerous digital technology.
The bullying can have severe impact on your kid’s mental and psychological health. Many bullying victims have committed suicide because they were unable to get support from their parents. Many kids do not inform their parents about bullying because of the fear of losing mobile phones and other privileges. The only way to be informed of this curse and to provide needed support to your bullying victim is monitoring and supervising of kids’ smart devices. You can track a cell phone with TheOneSpy app
Allowing Kids to Communicate With Online Predators
Do you know whom your kids are in contact with? You might be aware of their real life friends but what about online friends? You might have not seen the Facebook friend-list of your teen. What if your younger daughter is becoming victim of child predation? There are online predators who take support of digital technologies and particularly social media platforms to find and victimize the target. They trap the target for sexual exploitation. If you allow your kid to communicate with anyone without having enough reliable information about that person, you are doing wrong.
Letting your Teens to Sext
The teenage girls and boys exchange sexually explicit photos and videos via instant messengers and social media apps like Snapchat. The scoundrels misuse these sexts to blackmail the target. The unsupervised use of mobile phone can encourage your kids to do sexting and sharing personal information with predators and sex offenders. If you are not aware what your kids are doing online, you are not fulfilling your responsibilities that the parenthood has laid on you.
So, What is the Solution?
Only two things are needed to protect yourself and your children from the menaces of the digital technology and smart devices. First is proper time and attention and the second is monitoring. Make sure you never leave your kids and their issues unattended. Give them the time and support they deserve and desire. Make plans for physical outdoor activities at least once or twice a month. It would help your kids learn that the survival without social media and mobile phones is not as hard as they think.
Another most important thing is child monitoring. Parents must be aware of their kids’ activities in the real and cyber world. If you are working parent, you can keep eyes on their digital behavior with the help of parental control and monitoring app. It would help you keep track of every single mobile phone and computer activity of your kids without being helicopter parents. Monitor their digital lives and protect them from the potential dangers of the digital world.
