Parents: Protect the Internet from your kids

I've seen a lot of programs and information geared towards parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of being online. Stalkers, predators, bullies, fakers, hoaxers, et cetera, lurking behind all these various keyboards. But where do people think they come from? Another planet? Aliens have infiltrated the 'Net?
Nope. These are human beings. These are someone's children. Possibly even YOURS.

I have friends who are involved with Warrior Eli is a Hoax and I often read their blog. What caught my attention for a lot of these hoaxes is just how young some of these people were when they started out: 14 years old. These are kids.

What would possess a person to do something like this? Sure, there may be psychological issues at play for some of them, such as Münchausen by Internet. But is it possible that some of them are just bored and don't know any better? They start off thinking that it's just a wee bit of fun and then, before they know it, they are caught up in it?

Parents try and teach their children phone manners and how to interact face to face with others in a polite way, but do they all instruct their offspring on not only the importance of "Internet manners" but how to do it?

I'm sure there are parents who say to themselves, "Of course I've had a conversation with my child. They know how to behave."
Well, anyone who has spent any time around kids knows that just because you explain to them why they can't have a cookie before dinner and they don't have permission to have one, doesn't mean that they won't try and sneak one anyway when you're not looking. Understanding something and doing something are two different things.

And then there's those parents (yeah, we all know some like this) who refuse to believe that their perfect little angel could behave in anything but a perfect way, because their kids are always well behaved around them. Problem is there is no such thing as "perfect" and kids are going to test boundaries (particularly if they think their parents can't see them or won't know) and make mistakes. That doesn't necessarily make them "bad kids"; just makes them human.

Several years ago, I was not pleased to wander into a conversation one of my children was having with someone online. I could hear the other person talking through the speaker getting flustered with what my child was saying on his mic. They were playing some sort of game and my son was saying "What's wrong with you, noob? Are you stooooopid? All you have to do is [insert some technical stuff on how to configure things in the game - all spoken in a very snotty way; think of the Comic Book Store guy from The Simpsons]".
To add insult to injury, I could tell by the voice that the other player was a young 20-something male, and my son was only 8 years old and sounded very much like it. That's gotta hurt.

Yes, I took away my son's mic and explained to him why he shouldn't talk like that online (or anywhere) to anyone. I talked about respect and reputation. He seemed like he understood, but, much like sneaking a cookie, he continued to act like an ass online in text whenever I wasn't around.
Fortunately (and I sincerely mean that), it didn't take long for that particular gaming community to school my son on what they thought about his behaviour and that they weren't going to tolerate it [in much stronger language than what I had used]. At which point he was kicked and banned.
My son was extremely upset. And, yeah, bad mommy that I am, I did use it as an "I told you so" teaching moment. What you put out is what you'll get back.

I'm pleased to report that his online behaviour is much improved. He's not perfect; nobody is. But I was extremely proud of him one day for kicking and banning someone from a game he was running because they were writing derogatory comments and making fun of another player who had English as a second language. My son explained that to them and asked them to stop. He was ignored. Then my son calmly told that player that they were being mean and cruel, and then my son kicked and banned him from the game. He then spent the next four hours using a translate program and chatted and played with the player who'd been attacked, and they had a great time.

That's the kind of reputation you want your kids to foster when they are online. Particularly in this day and age. Everything they do online is potentially saved somewhere. The Internet has a LONG memory. You have no idea who is recording or taking screen shots of your activities to post somewhere else on the Web that you have no control over. In talking with some of the Warrior Eli is a Hoax folks, it's obvious that lots of people don't have a clue how easy it is to track down their identities online [legally]. Even using a pseudonym offers little protection.

So if you don't want to protect the online community from your kids; maybe you'll want to protect your kids from themselves. What seems like harmless fun to them now, may not seem that great 10 years from now when they are trying to explain to a prospective employer (or anyone) how they aren't the jerk that has been logged and splashed on the Internet accessible with an easy search. Or that they're no longer the faker/hoaxer who was just bored and now is memorialized on several websites for what they have done.
No one knows about all the stupid stuff I did as a kid unless I tell them, because there isn't a permanent written and/or pictorial record of it that anyone in the world can access. It's not like that anymore.

So when you're thinking about how to protect your kids online, stop and think about how maybe, just maybe, it's the Internet that needs to be protected from your kids.