Cyberwellness:Promoting Cyberwellness

From Cyberwellness

Introduction
Commerce and Information
Sexual Health
Mind, Body and Spirit
Sharing Perspectives
Social Networking

[edit] Promoting Cyberwellness

Promoting cyberwellness involves a holistic approach to both your child and family's wellbeing online. A holistic approach emphasises the importance of a child or young person's emotional, psychological and behavioural wellbeing as they grow up. As a parent or carer you are in a good position to take into consideration additional factors, such as the child or young person's part in the family, their relationships, alterations in how they use the Internet, and their behaviour in a variety of social settings. These factors along with a child's age and emotional intelligence need to be considered when thinking about a child's wellbeing online.

It is essential to discuss a range of issues with your children about the safe use of new technologies, their personal safety online and also how to interpret and make decisions regarding the content they either encounter or choose to publish. On this site The Good, The Bad and The Risky aspects of the Internet will be explored, from disclosing personal information through to eating disorders and pornography.

Thinking about and having conversations about such topics can at first be challenging. Nevertheless, reassuring your child that they can talk to you about a range of topics and that you will offer support and guidance is a hugely important step in keeping your child safe both online and offline. You may want to schedule some time for a family meeting and talk. If you have more than one child you may want to talk to them separately so you can provide age-appropriate information to each child.

Technological protection

Technological protective solutions, for example, filters and Parental controls are a key component in enhancing your child's online safety. On this site you will also find information and guidance about how to enhance the security and safety of children and young people's computers. Personal and technological security combined with open dialogue between parents and children are the three essential ingredients in terms of keeping children safe online!

Your child's perspective

It is important to recognise your child's perspective and that children and young people may be unwilling to discuss issues like these with parents, carers and teachers for a variety of reasons as follows;

• Perhaps most importantly to a child or young person is the concern that when it comes to talking to you about a problem online, they anticipate that you will react negatively and limit or terminate their use of a computer and/ or mobile phone.
• They may have been doing something wrong and they don't want you to know about it.
• They are embarrassed at what happened.
• They don't want to disappoint you.
• A child may not speak to you because he or she assumes that you wouldn't understand the nature of online activities or how the Internet operates
• They think you will over-react to the situation.
• If they tell you one part, they will have to tell you everything.
• They feel they can handle anything and are invincible (it won't happen to me).
• If an individual with ill-intent (stalker, bully or an adult with a sexual interest in children) has already been in regular contact with your child the user may be threatening them that they will come to you and tell you everything your son or daughter has been doing wrong.
• If an individual with ill-intent has already been in regular contact with your child that individual may have already convinced your child that you can not be trusted.

Whatever you do, don't blame or punish your child if he tells you about an uncomfortable online encounter. Your best strategy is to work with him, so you both can learn from what happened and figure out how to keep it from happening again.

The challenges posed by the Internet can be positive. Learning to make good choices on the Internet can serve young people well by helping them to think critically about the choices they will face. Learning how to make good choices is a skill that will last a lifetime.

Creating a supportive environment..

Every effort should be made to minimize the use of labels and judgmental overtones when discussing particular aspects of a child or young persons' behaviours or responses.

If labels of behaviour have to be used, they should bear the qualifications of time and place, which limit their longer-range use and applicability. Children like adults have rights and thereby the child's welfare must be the highest priority in everything that is done. Your child must be dealt with truthfully and honestly and must be treated as a person, at all times. Take the child or young person seriously and enable the child to partake in the decision-making. It is also important to be aware of your own and other family members fears and prejudices and the potential impact of these on the child or young person in question and to safeguard against them. As a parent you will be aware that no two children are the same. There is no single or agreed explanation for developmental processes of 'normal' development. Therefore, each child needs and readiness for discussion of different topics ought to be assessed by you on an individual basis.

Issues that you might be concerned about..

Children often cannot communicate a problem directly through language. Instead, their distress may be manifested through abnormal behaviours. Therefore, it is important to observe any alterations in your child's patterns of behaviour.

• It is important to recognize that a child's problems occur in the context of growing up and learning. Often adults mislabel children's behaviour as 'psychologically problematic' where as it is something that will pass with time. For example, a child's aggressive online behaviours may be resolved once you have had a chat with them about netiquette, i.e., appropriate online behaviours.
• It is also important to understand the norms of behaviour in each setting. By 6 or 7 years of age, children adopt behavioural roles, which vary across different contexts. Intermittently, children may display behaviours that you would not consider acceptable but that are deemed by other young people to be 'socially acceptable', for example, name calling during chat sessions.

Aggressive online behaviours

Where can the line be drawn between assertiveness and aggressiveness? Context or contexts for such actions become critical in making judgments. For example, a child may be aggressive in an online chat environment but may not be aggressive in real world settings such as school or at home. Settings must be taken into account when considering specific behaviours. Therefore, it is important to know about the online settings your child inhabits and the interpersonal relationships, roles and responsibilities associated with each of these online environments. It is important not to ignore certain problems and to let your child know that you will be supportive no matter what subject a child wishes to discuss with you. To find out more about this subject see: [Communications_and_activities]

Mental health

Signs of psychological abnormality in children are, by in large, exaggerations of behavioural, thinking and emotional responses found in all children. Where they are interpreted as being dysfunctional often lies in the perception of the inappropriate intensity, frequency and persistence of behaviours. As will be discussed in the following sections, sites promoting for example, anorexia and self harm are accessible online. If your child is vulnerable, curious or predisposed to seek out this information it is important that you consider ways in which to enhance your child's cyber wellness by opening lines of communication with your child. For more information see: [Health_body_spirit ]

Sexual Health

Children rarely tell if they are being abused. However, there may be signs which make you concerned and which may be an indication of a child being abused. You may notice that the child or young person is more withdrawn, quiet or afraid or he or she may tell you something that sounds as though they have been hurt by somebody. The child in question may be spending a lot of time online but may not wish to share the details of their online friendships with you. For more information see: [Sexual_health ]

If you see behaviours that are of concern, or if a child or young person tells you something, you need to take them seriously, do something about it, and speak to someone.

Whatever you do … don't do nothing.