By John Carosella, Cleveland, Akron, Lake/Geauga Family, 11/01/06
If parents have kids at home using the computer, they are a first generation Internet Parent. They are probably struggling to recapture - or perhaps establish for the first time - authority over their kids' Internet behavior. It's a serious challenge, and mastering it is critical to being an effective parent. Trust me, I know. I have three teenagers at home.
No invention in the history of man has had a more dramatic impact on a child's world view, in such a short period of time, as the Internet. The entire range of human behavior, from the most noble to the most depraved, is available to children online. A parent's job is to manage and modulate their kids' exposure to this wide range of content, good and bad. Unfortunately, credibility on the topic is hard to come by with kids. However, there is a solution: Approach the problem from familiar ground. You're the parents. You're responsible for the family. And in particular, you're responsible for the family's behavior in public.
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