Staying abreast and up-to-date with your kids in this digital age with technology is a cumbersome task for Parents.

Here is a quick guide in the form of tips to Parents:

• Think about how you guide your family and use the existing parenting skills you already have, in the real world, and do the same in the digital world.
• Explore the technologies your kids enjoy. Play some music or games with them which they like.
• Talk to close associates, friends, family about how they manage their children’s digital lives.
• Keep reminding older siblings that websites they use are most likely not suitable for younger brothers and sisters.
• Make digital concerns/issues part of day-to-day conversation and share knowledge.
• Enquire with your child about whether the issues they face are different online and offline.
• Never be afraid to set boundaries and rules. Kids may initially complain but eventually will fall in place.
• Communicate with children about controlling their own online reputation by thinking before they post or share anything.

Here are a few Parenting rules that really matter:

a) Build our child’s digital resilience to keep them safer: The best way of ensuring that kids stay safe and make the right decisions online, is through confident parenting. Allow your child to self-regulate by encouraging their online interests, discuss boundaries and be available for support – are the aspects Children would anticipate for digital resilience. Building resilience through parental support and self-regulation is also likely to result in children with enhanced digital skills, as kids are more likely to seek out new opportunities and challenges independently to develop and express their true identities.

b) Keep communicating with your child on ‘the online safety conversation’: Discuss the adventures your kids face online. Be involved to find out what they’re good at and like doing. Make sure that it’s an on-going discussion and that safety forms just part of the discussions. If your child approaches you about something that has worried them online, ensure you take up an open conversation with them and that they are able to talk to you about what to do if they see something that upsets or worries them. Take them into confidence by explaining that they won’t get into trouble for making a mistake and that you can help them sort things out.

c) Balance guiding your child’s online activities with the space to remain independent: Just like in the real world, as a Parent, you teach your children and then,  they learn to navigate journeys safely and independently, replicate the same in the online world too. Children this way are more likely to acquire new skills, interests, be more creative, engage more in civic activities and develop social skills and hence relationships.

d) Set boundaries: Children who are given set boundaries will grow up feeling far more secure than their other counterparts. Encourage children to use their own judgement based on the boundaries you help set out. Ensure that these set boundaries form part of the overall online conversation you have with your children rather than presenting them with a series of inflexible rules – to guide them better in making corrective learning measures.

e) Educate Child on how to use digital media rather for how long: There’s no ‘one size fits all’ as far as screen time goes. Parents should focus more on the context (and then the content) of a child’s digital media use, rather than the time they spend on screen, as well as the connections they make through it.

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