Have you Talked to your Kids about the Internet Addiction?

Long working hours, hectic daily routine and more time being spent on mobile phones has led to a serious communication gap between parents and kids. It is hard to believe that some parents get to see their child only once or twice a week. So, how are children growing up?

Well, due to absence of parental supervision and care that they need, children eventually end up living in their own world. With internet being the biggest trend of the decade, most of the children find it convenient to connect with the online world. They make friends, chat with people, search answers for their queries and do whatever they want to. However, this habit raises questions on the development and security of the children.

Not just their physical growth get affected as they sit glued to their screen for long hours, but their mental health gets impacted too. Several cases of children addicted to online gaming appear in the news every year. Recent events of Blue Whale and Momo Challenge came out to be big shock for parents as several kids around the world hurt themselves in order to complete the game challenge. Some of the innocents even committed suicide because of these deadly games.

It is not just online gaming to be blamed, cases of cyberbullies abusing children are also not anywhere less. The consequences of bullying leads to kidnapping, verbal and physical abuse, depression among victims and what not.

So what should Parents do?

Understanding the fact that nowadays majority of both parents are working, we would like to suggest a few useful tips for safety of children.

• Familiarize your kids with the pros and cons of the internet. Make them understand with examples that it a good resource to search for information about their study and other related subjects. However, engaging in activities like watching porn, chatting with strangers on online dating websites, etc. can put them in trouble.
• Maintain friendly equations with your children. Make them believe that they can trust you when it comes to sharing a secret. Always listen to your child when he/she is trying to tell you something. Do not react harshly if they have done something wrong.
• Take out small intervals from your working hours to connect with your child via voice/video call. Get an idea about where they are and what they are doing. This habits helps in forming a friendly bond between you and your child. You can also plan family outings and fun activities during the weekends.
• Maintain a list of phone numbers and addresses of closest friends and teachers of your kid. You never know when you would need to make a call.
• Get to know what your kids are doing on the internet. Use an advanced parental control software to track the websites browsed, time spent on browsing , etc. Parental control also helps you block certain types of websites that you find inappropriate for your child. And in case your child tries to attempt those blocked website, then you can receive live notifications on your mobile phone via parental control software.