How to Mentor Your Internet Youth Online

Protecting Our Teens. The best way to help a teen use good judgment is to prepare them for puberty before they experience it for themselves. Hormones make good decisions difficult. We need to understand them and except them without criticism or nagging for practical internet youth guidance.

We need to help them excel at the things they want to do. Each decision all of us make may have consequences that are out of our control effecting not only the rest of our lives but the lives of others. These decisions include the decisions of our teens.

The internet is a new world that seems to provide anonymity but in reality it is turning the world into a small town where everyone can know everything about anyone. The internet is there to use but expect every action to be recorded and available forever. There are some more eminent dangers that teens should avoid.

Allow teens choices and decision making opportunities in the home so they are treated as adults. An example may be to let them choose the chores they are responsible for doing around the house that must be completed before they receive leisure activities like television and computer time. They should understand that the computer offers no privacy from you or the world.

Here are steps you can take to protect your teens:

1. Use parental controls to restrict their activities online. This is not to punish or control them but to protect them from online threats.
2. Use one or more monitoring systems to track their activities or only let them use the computer while you watch.
3. Stress to them that nothing online is private. Things posted on the web may be there forever, no take-backs.  There are hackers constantly finding ways to crack even the most secure systems.
4. Teach them these simple safety tips:
   • Protect Privacy. Never post personal information like Social Security number, address, phone number, or family financial information. Information they give out about friends can permanently harm those people. Take-backs and “I’m sorry” don’t work.
   • Social Networking. Select user names that do not reveal too. Con artists can use their name, gender, age, or hometown to deceive and manipulate them. The confusion generated by hormones and curiosity make teens easy targets. People who are acquainted already know what they need to know.
   • Think Outside the Teen World. Teenagers who post inappropriate photos or comments could cause embarrassment, lifetime damage to others and even death. Teens and young adults should think outside the box and realize the teen culture is the entry point into the larger permanent society. Their actions could also draw unwanted attention from others.
   • “No Take Backs”. When information is posted online it is copied to other computers by friends, classmates, enemies, and even search engines. It can’t be deleted or changed because the copies will always be available.
   • Remember Mothers Words. Adding strangers to IM, AOL, IRC, Yahoo or other social networking friend lists is worse than talking to strangers. Remember too, that social networking software can reveal more about you than you volunteer. People can say what you want to hear and pretend to be who you want them to be.
   • Don’t Take Risks. It’s exciting for teens to flirt and court romance and online feels safer than person to person. Online is actually more dangerous because older criminals are attracted to an environment where they can pretend to be young, attractive and witty to lure unsuspecting teens into deadly situations.
   • Trust Yourself Cautiously. If you feel threatened or uncomfortable by someone or something online, tell a parent, educator or another trusted adult who will know whether or not to report an incident to law enforcement and your Internet service provider.
   • Spam Mail. Emails from strangers or emails you are not expecting is frequently generated by viruses, unscrupulous strangers trying to steal information or access to your computer. Never click on it.

For software ideas and suggestions read Child Safety Online.