Showing posts with label empower your kids to be safe for life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empower your kids to be safe for life. Show all posts
Monday, July 16, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
7 year old girl fights off attacker! Great job!
Great work by this girl! Listen to the last thing she says... "My school taught me...etc" She did what she was taught and it saved her. Yet still we have to BATTLE to get our education into schools or to get many parents to invest in their children's safety. Apathy and denial are the biggest threat to our kids...Check this great job out:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1442200775001/
and here's the link to Whitcoulls online for our book 'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life'. CLICK HERE
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1442200775001/
and here's the link to Whitcoulls online for our book 'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life'. CLICK HERE
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
You Didn’t Thank Me For Punching You in the Face
You Didn’t Thank Me For Punching You in the Face
Original article HEREParents...This article is excellent and something I definitely support the philosophy of. I have written about this in the past but I love the blunt style of the article. Enjoy!
I am sure every girl can recall, at least once as a child, coming home and telling their parents, uncle, aunt or grandparent about a boy who had pulled her hair, hit her, teased her, pushed her or committed some other playground crime. I will bet money that most of those, if not all, will tell you that they were told “Oh, that just means he likes you”. I never really thought much about it before having a daughter of my own. I find it appalling that this line of bullshit is still being fed to young children. Look, if you want to tell your child that being verbally and/or physically abused is an acceptable sign of affection, i urge you to rethink your parenting strategy. If you try and feed MY daughter that crap, you better bring protective gear because I am going to shower you with the brand of “affection” you are endorsing.
When the fuck was it decided that we should start teaching our daughters to accept being belittled, disrespected and abused as endearing treatment? And we have the audacity to wonder why women stay in abusive relationships? How did society become so oblivious to the fact that we were conditioning our daughters to endure abusive treatment, much less view it as romantic overtures? Is this where the phrase “hitting on girls” comes from? Well, here is a tip: Save the “it’s so cute when he gets hateful/physical with her because it means he loves her” asshattery for your own kids, not mine. While you’re at it, keep them away from my kids until you decide to teach them respect and boundaries.
My daughter is `10 years old and has come home on more than one occasion recounting an incident at school in which she was teased or harassed by a male classmate. There has been several times when someone that she was retelling the story to responded with the old, “that just means he likes you” line. Wrong. I want my daughter to know that being disrespected is NEVER acceptable. I want my daughter to know that if someone likes her and respects her, much less LOVES her, they don’t hurt her and they don’t put her down. I want my daughter to know that the boy called her ugly or pushed her or pulled her hair didn’t do it because he admires her, it is because he is a little asshole and assholes are an occurrence of society that will have to be dealt with for the rest of her life. I want my daughter to know how to deal with assholes she will encounter throughout her life. For now, I want my daughter to know that if someone is verbally harassing her, she should tell the teacher and if the teacher does nothing, she should tell me. If someone physically touches her, tell the teacher then, if it continues, to yell, “STOP TOUCHING/PUNCHING/PUSHING ME” in the middle of class or the hallway, then tell me. Last year, one little boy stole her silly bandz from her. He just grabbed her and yanked a handful of them off of her wrist. When I went to the school to address the incident, the teacher smiled and explained it away to her, in front of me, “he probably has a crush on you”. Okay, the boy walked up to my daughter, grabbed and held her by the arm and forcibly removed her bracelets from her as she struggled and you want to convince her that she should be flattered? Fuck off. I am going to punch you in the face but I hope you realize it is just my way of thanking you for the great advice you gave my daughter. If these same advice givers’ sons came home crying because another male classmate was pushing them, pulling their hair, hitting them or calling them names, I would bet dollars to donuts they would tell him to defend themselves and kick the kid’s ass, if necessary. They sure as shit wouldn’t say, “he probably just wants a play date”.
I will teach my daughter to accept nothing less than respect. Anyone who hurts her physically or emotionally doesn’t deserve her respect, friendship or love. I will teach my boys the same thing as well as the fact that hitting on girls doesn’t involve hitting girls. I can’t teach my daughter to respect herself if I am teaching her that no one else has to respect her. I can’t raise sons that respect women, if I teach them that bullying is a valid expression of affection.
The next time that someone offers up that little “secret” to my daughter, I am going to slap the person across the face and yell, “I LOVE YOU”.
Parents, if you have not read this book yet, it is a very cheap investment in your children's safety: CLICK HERE
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Online Safety for Kids Series Part 3
Our new book 'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life' has been getting fantastic reviews and I am really stoked with the feedback. So I thought I'd pick some pieces of it and give them away for free to you. So over the next few blogs I will reporoduce parts of the section on Online safety, as I receive quite a few questions about this subject. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers. Phil
3)Ensure that all Security Software is Installed and Up To Date.
A computer without adequate, updated virus protection software is exposed to multiple risks including Malware (malicious software including viruses, spyware, trojan horses, adware, and spam), Identity theft, Spoofing, Phishing, and Keystroke loggers. It is vital that you have adequate software installed and that it is kept updated to protect your kids and yourself from these threats.
For younger children (pre-teen) you may also choose to register with a child specific ISP (Internet Service Provider). These ISP’s function as your child’s home page browser and only allow children to surf areas of the internet that are approved for children of specific ages. There are several of these browsers available. Two of them are www.razzul.com and www.kidwideweb.net
3)Ensure that all Security Software is Installed and Up To Date.
A computer without adequate, updated virus protection software is exposed to multiple risks including Malware (malicious software including viruses, spyware, trojan horses, adware, and spam), Identity theft, Spoofing, Phishing, and Keystroke loggers. It is vital that you have adequate software installed and that it is kept updated to protect your kids and yourself from these threats.
For younger children (pre-teen) you may also choose to register with a child specific ISP (Internet Service Provider). These ISP’s function as your child’s home page browser and only allow children to surf areas of the internet that are approved for children of specific ages. There are several of these browsers available. Two of them are www.razzul.com and www.kidwideweb.net
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Online Safety For Kids Series - Part 2
Our new book 'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life' has been getting fantastic reviews and I am really stoked with the feedback. So I thought I'd pick some pieces of it and give them away for free to you. So over the next few blogs I will reporoduce parts of the section on Online safety, as I receive quite a few questions about this subject. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers. Phil
2) Openly Communicate and Participate
The more that you participate and communicate with your child about their online activities, without seeming meddlesome, the more you will be able to understand what they get up to and how safe they are being.
One of the best ways to do this is to let them show you, and teach you, things on the internet. Be open to learning new things from them and ask relevant (sometimes ‘loaded’) questions as you go. For example: “Thanks for showing me how the chat room works, can you please tell me how to make sure that no-one can view my personal information? Also, what are the best strategies that you use to avoid contact with predators online?” Questions like this allow you to gauge their level of understanding and competence in this area, and if it is good, you can reinforce it with praise. If it is clearly lacking you can give them guidance and help them set new boundaries.
It is also important that you understand chat and SMS text lingo. It can seem like a completely different language and it is important that you at least understand the basics of it to know what is being said.
Examples of just a few of the commonly used chat acronyms are:
A/S/L = Age/Sex/Location
CD9 or just 9 = Parents are around/watching
CTN = Can’t talk now
LMIRL = Lets meet in real life
ILU = I love you
IWSN = I want sex now
F2F = Face to face
GNOC = Get naked on cam
HAK = Hugs and kisses
KPC = Keeping parents clueless
TDTM = Talk dirty to me
PAL = Parents are listening
PAW = Parents are watching
WTF = What the f**k
WYRN = What’s your real name?
These are just a few of the relevant ones, so you can see that without any knowledge of chat lingo your kids could very well keep you in the ‘KPC’ category.
An excellent website that has been set up to help you decipher and understand chat lingo is www.netlingo.com. They even have an ‘Acronyms for parents’ section with the top chat acronyms that parents need to know.
3) To be continued in the next blog...
2) Openly Communicate and Participate
The more that you participate and communicate with your child about their online activities, without seeming meddlesome, the more you will be able to understand what they get up to and how safe they are being.
One of the best ways to do this is to let them show you, and teach you, things on the internet. Be open to learning new things from them and ask relevant (sometimes ‘loaded’) questions as you go. For example: “Thanks for showing me how the chat room works, can you please tell me how to make sure that no-one can view my personal information? Also, what are the best strategies that you use to avoid contact with predators online?” Questions like this allow you to gauge their level of understanding and competence in this area, and if it is good, you can reinforce it with praise. If it is clearly lacking you can give them guidance and help them set new boundaries.
It is also important that you understand chat and SMS text lingo. It can seem like a completely different language and it is important that you at least understand the basics of it to know what is being said.
Examples of just a few of the commonly used chat acronyms are:
A/S/L = Age/Sex/Location
CD9 or just 9 = Parents are around/watching
CTN = Can’t talk now
LMIRL = Lets meet in real life
ILU = I love you
IWSN = I want sex now
F2F = Face to face
GNOC = Get naked on cam
HAK = Hugs and kisses
KPC = Keeping parents clueless
TDTM = Talk dirty to me
PAL = Parents are listening
PAW = Parents are watching
WTF = What the f**k
WYRN = What’s your real name?
These are just a few of the relevant ones, so you can see that without any knowledge of chat lingo your kids could very well keep you in the ‘KPC’ category.
An excellent website that has been set up to help you decipher and understand chat lingo is www.netlingo.com. They even have an ‘Acronyms for parents’ section with the top chat acronyms that parents need to know.
3) To be continued in the next blog...
Monday, June 6, 2011
Online Safety For Kids Series - Part 1
Our new book 'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life' has been getting fantastic reviews and I am really stoked with the feedback. So I thought I'd pick some pieces of it and give them away for free to you. So over the next few blogs I will reporoduce parts of the section on Online safety, as I receive quite a few questions about this subject. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers. Phil
Most kids regularly use the internet to safely interact with hundreds of people (who they either know or don’t know) through social network and gaming sites. The threat of online sexual predators may not be as prolific as the media will have us believe but it is certainly a genuine threat. Some sexual predators spend a great deal of time searching the internet for potential victims whom they can groom, so it is vital that kids know the risks of various activities, and how to stay safe from them.
To be able to successfully guide children to stay safe and be responsible on the internet it is important that the issues are openly communicated between you and your kids. What you perceive to be issues and what your kids perceive to be issues may be worlds apart, so it is important to bridge the gap to ensure that your kids ‘buy in’ to the rules. You can be sure that if kids don’t understand the reasons behind the internet safety rules, and if they think their parent is out of touch and doesn’t understand how things really work on the internet (a commonly held, and sometimes accurate belief among a lot of kids), they will find a way to circumvent the rules. If they fully understand the actual risks, not the over exaggerated ones, and have the strategies to deal with them, then they will follow the rules in any environment whether supervised or unsupervised. Remember, most kids have access to the internet from multiple different sources including home, school, work, internet cafe, friend’s houses, their cellphone/PDA, their friend’s cellphone/PDA etc, so it is unrealistic to think that you are going to be able to supervise all of their internet activity. That is why it is so important to work with your kids on this, not simply apply hard and fast rules which they resent or don’t understand. If you do take that position, as soon as they have the chance, and that will be often, they will ignore the rules (maybe even act in spite of them, which is even more dangerous) and be open to potential victimisation.
Before we look at the greatest risks that kids face on the internet, and strategies to address them, there are a couple of key strategies that you as the parent can take to ensure your children’s responsible and safe use of the internet:
1) Set Boundaries and Supervise Their Activities
Depending on the age of the child, there is one highly effective and important strategy that you can implement to minimise the online risks to your kids. I advocate this strategy for all pre-teen children. It is very simply:
Do not allow the computer to be located in the child’s bedroom or other private place, move it into a public area of the house.
This will help with the immediate issue of supervision while you teach your child how to use the internet safely.
Set boundaries with your kids including time limits online, and rules around the sharing/displaying of any kind of personal information online, as discussed below, and supervise their compliance. Keep in mind though that your kids probably know more about the internet than you do. If they do not understand why the rules are in place, and how they keep them safe, they will find a way around them. For example:
• You can check the browsing history to see what sites they have been to, but most kids know how to delete these and their temporary internet files to prevent you from checking up on them
• You can monitor their emails, but many kids set up multiple accounts; one for you to see and another for their private use. Additionally they will delete sent and received emails (or IM conversation logs) that they don’t want you to see
• You can watch their social networking pages, but often times kids will set up multiple pages; one which they allow you to see and join as their ‘friend’, and another which they use to communicate with their friends etc
• You can check the saved file content on the computer but kids will often just save anything they don’t want you to see on a removable hard drive and/or rename files to non descript and covert names which don’t attract any attention to them
• You can password protect their access, but most kids will bypass this very quickly
These are just a few of the ways kids can hide what they are doing online. There are of course other options available to parents such as installing overt or covert tracking software, but that only addresses the home computer use, not all of the other access points that they have to the internet. In my opinion the most effective way to ensure children’s online safety and responsibility is to openly educate and guide them, and let them be involved in the boundary setting (aka ‘rule setting’) process. If they feel that they helped make the rules, because they understand the risks, they will be more likely to always follow them wherever they are. Use the Online Safety Agreement in Appendix Four as a guide to set and agree on the boundaries.
2) To be continued in the next blog...
Most kids regularly use the internet to safely interact with hundreds of people (who they either know or don’t know) through social network and gaming sites. The threat of online sexual predators may not be as prolific as the media will have us believe but it is certainly a genuine threat. Some sexual predators spend a great deal of time searching the internet for potential victims whom they can groom, so it is vital that kids know the risks of various activities, and how to stay safe from them.
To be able to successfully guide children to stay safe and be responsible on the internet it is important that the issues are openly communicated between you and your kids. What you perceive to be issues and what your kids perceive to be issues may be worlds apart, so it is important to bridge the gap to ensure that your kids ‘buy in’ to the rules. You can be sure that if kids don’t understand the reasons behind the internet safety rules, and if they think their parent is out of touch and doesn’t understand how things really work on the internet (a commonly held, and sometimes accurate belief among a lot of kids), they will find a way to circumvent the rules. If they fully understand the actual risks, not the over exaggerated ones, and have the strategies to deal with them, then they will follow the rules in any environment whether supervised or unsupervised. Remember, most kids have access to the internet from multiple different sources including home, school, work, internet cafe, friend’s houses, their cellphone/PDA, their friend’s cellphone/PDA etc, so it is unrealistic to think that you are going to be able to supervise all of their internet activity. That is why it is so important to work with your kids on this, not simply apply hard and fast rules which they resent or don’t understand. If you do take that position, as soon as they have the chance, and that will be often, they will ignore the rules (maybe even act in spite of them, which is even more dangerous) and be open to potential victimisation.
Before we look at the greatest risks that kids face on the internet, and strategies to address them, there are a couple of key strategies that you as the parent can take to ensure your children’s responsible and safe use of the internet:
1) Set Boundaries and Supervise Their Activities
Depending on the age of the child, there is one highly effective and important strategy that you can implement to minimise the online risks to your kids. I advocate this strategy for all pre-teen children. It is very simply:
Do not allow the computer to be located in the child’s bedroom or other private place, move it into a public area of the house.
This will help with the immediate issue of supervision while you teach your child how to use the internet safely.
Set boundaries with your kids including time limits online, and rules around the sharing/displaying of any kind of personal information online, as discussed below, and supervise their compliance. Keep in mind though that your kids probably know more about the internet than you do. If they do not understand why the rules are in place, and how they keep them safe, they will find a way around them. For example:
• You can check the browsing history to see what sites they have been to, but most kids know how to delete these and their temporary internet files to prevent you from checking up on them
• You can monitor their emails, but many kids set up multiple accounts; one for you to see and another for their private use. Additionally they will delete sent and received emails (or IM conversation logs) that they don’t want you to see
• You can watch their social networking pages, but often times kids will set up multiple pages; one which they allow you to see and join as their ‘friend’, and another which they use to communicate with their friends etc
• You can check the saved file content on the computer but kids will often just save anything they don’t want you to see on a removable hard drive and/or rename files to non descript and covert names which don’t attract any attention to them
• You can password protect their access, but most kids will bypass this very quickly
These are just a few of the ways kids can hide what they are doing online. There are of course other options available to parents such as installing overt or covert tracking software, but that only addresses the home computer use, not all of the other access points that they have to the internet. In my opinion the most effective way to ensure children’s online safety and responsibility is to openly educate and guide them, and let them be involved in the boundary setting (aka ‘rule setting’) process. If they feel that they helped make the rules, because they understand the risks, they will be more likely to always follow them wherever they are. Use the Online Safety Agreement in Appendix Four as a guide to set and agree on the boundaries.
2) To be continued in the next blog...
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