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Do you have kids turning into teens? Or are they already there? In either case, the internet is going to be a necessary part of their life. As they jump into it, they learn the basic technology and evolving trends so fast that soon they are out of your control.
Understanding the use of the internet and digital devices is a must for parents now. Teens safety is important in the digital age and parents must adopt all the necessary measures to keep them safe. Whether their kids are using a computer or smartphone, they must know how to use these things especially the social media apps/
As an article by Ross Ellis on HuffPost explains about keeping teens safe in the digital world as well as knowing the trends, age limits, usage, and updates of the social media apps. If parents don’t make themselves more updated and involved, they might end up losing their child to technology. As children enter into the digital world, all of a sudden, they think they know all better.
Being parents is no easy task; most of the parents are frustrated and tired even before the child enters the teenage. Parents often forget that something going on with their kids if they are behaving differently. Most of the time, the stamina to prioritize the needs of teenagers are lost, but in this scenario, parents often do the things that worsen the situation.
This article published at Washington post has explained very well the mistakes that parents often do that makes the teens’ situation worse:
Now, this is something that makes them go all rebellious. You cannot think of your kid as little even when they are growing up. And, especially in teenage, they have this perception that they have grown up. But most of the parents use lame tones and arguments with them as they are still kids. John Duffy suggests that you need to treat them like adults than children. Listen to them carefully and let them disagree.
Well, we got to agree, most of the parents find it obligatory and necessary to talk to their children about stuff going on. Though it is necessary it should come from the heart. If you care about them, you talk to them. They are not kids anymore. If you keep lecturing them for everything they do, they will hate those conversations forever and never value them.
You are talking to someone, sharing your feelings with them, but they are pretty much indulged in something they are doing. How would you feel? You want the other person to give you time and concentration. The same is the case with kids. If you are doing dishes, cooking, watching TV, or anything else, give them another time or leave everything to listen to them with full attention.
When you want to keeps your teens safe from the dangers of the outer world, you need to let them confide in you. This won’t happen if you are not communicating with them the right way. Do you finish their sentences before they do? Or start laughing or talking before they are finished? If yes, then this is not the right way of earning their trust.
You need to have them confide in you by showing them how much you care about them. They want to be listened to, so listen to them and respond when they need you to respond.
Do you feel that you know better which activities are best for them? Every parent feels like that. But is this right to enforce our own choices on the kids? Well, think of it like this; you have a passion for writing, but your parents force you to pursue arts. How would you like it?
We might think we know what is better for them, but it is their life. They are real human beings and they have passions too. Ask them what they like, what are their hobbies, and facilitate them to do those things. This way they will like your trust you more.
A post at internetmatters.org talks about the internet safety checklist for pre-teens. It says if you are afraid they might download weird applications, give them small allowance to download apps from the places you agree together. The same should be done with other aspects of life.
Most of the parents don’t trust their children to make even the smallest decisions of their lives like education preferences. This is the age where the kids learn decision making. Put your trust in them and let them become responsible adults. Know more about how SecureTeen can help decision making in teens.
Parents usually live with the impression that parental control apps will make them look too authoritative and conservative. Also, they feel that their children will be distant from them if they choose this path.
If you think the same, then you certainly don’t know the right way of using a parental control app like SecureTeen. You know very well that you can monitor their activities and know more about their social life through these apps. But do you know that parental control app helps in making parenting easier? Read more about this at another article of SecureTeen about enabling parental control.
You can know and then you can talk to them. Usually, teens have this idea that our parents don’t know anything. They feel that you won’t understand them because you are unaware of the difficulties of the digital world.
Prove them wrong through SecureTeen. Know the media and the dangers it is imposing on your kids. When you know how they feel, you can talk to them in a better way. For the spying and being authoritative issues, it is highly recommended to get your teens on the same page as you. Tell them what you are going to do and the reason behind it.
Ensuring your teens’ safety is an important yet difficult task. However, it can be done if you know the right strategy to do it. Avoid the above mistakes and adapt to the right parenting style today. Don’t blame your kids for the changing behavior. Blame the dangers of the world and teach them the ways to handle those dangers.