Why don’t we teach our kids to have the same caution with online strangers that they do in person?

Everyone’s heard about the dangers of sexting — sending nude pictures and videos over the Internet — but no one thinks that their kid would be dumb enough to do it. Well, they are, and they do, and it can change their lives forever.

Lori Getz spoke with radio news correspondent, Carleen Johnson, to discuss summer cyber-parenting tips.
Click here to listen.

Click here to listen to the interview.
Lori Getz, joins Elsa Clark of LA Talk Radio in a discussion on the role social networking plays in college admissions and retention as well as how these sites can affect students in general – in every area of their lives.
The conversation focuses on the parents’ role in raising their children in this technological age.
For further information on Elsa’s show on LA Talk Radio, visit her site.

Today’s young people are known as Digital Natives. Their brains are physically wired differently from us as parents and therefore they think and behave in a manner that sometimes seems foreign. As parents, we need to stop fighting their involvement in technology and begin talking.
Try some of these cyber-parenting tips:
1) Treat the behavior not just the technology: Find out WHY your children are online as much as they are. Ask them the same questions you would ask if they were on the phone incessantly!  Who are you …

Welcome to the world of the digital native. Where everything is graphics before text, it moves at an unconventional speed, and information is always just a click away. This is the world your children are living in.  Technology is as intuitive to them as turning on a light switch is to us.
We on the other hand are Digital Immigrant.  We are the generation of the “did you get my e-mail phone call”.  We send the e-mail…but then we pick up the phone and say, did you get my e-mail. …

A lot of the cyber-bullying I see happens when kids have sleepovers. A group of boys or a group of girls get together and now they have had way too much soda and too much pizza and too much candy, the gang mentality is starting to set in and they are not thinking straight anymore, it’s late at night and mom and dad have gone to bed and they take the laptop into their room.  They get online and now they’re doing sneaky things.  They are online talking about the …

What are you wearing?
Where are you going?
Who are you going with?
What time will you be home?
Do these look familiar to you?  Were you asked these questions as a child and as a teenager?  I know I was.  My dad didn’t let me go anywhere until he knew what I was wearing, where I was going, who I was going with, and what time I would be home.
If we’re going to ask these questions when our kids walk out the front door of our homes we need to ask these …

I am thrilled to report that on Oct. 1, 2008 Congress passed an update to the Children’s Internet Protection Act that requires schools participating in the E-Rate program to educate students regarding appropriate behavior on social networking and chat room sites and about cyber-bullying.
With the help of The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) congress finally realized that we need to focus on education rather than restriction.
I hope this new legislation brings to light that schools need to take the time …

It’s important that both children and adults safeguard their personal information. For kids, personal information includes your first or last name, age, gender, e-mail address, the name of their school or sports team, the number on their jersey, likes and dislikes and even the names of siblings and friends. For adults, personal information also includes credit card information and social security number…