Parents: This piece is meant to start conversation at Thanksgiving Dinner. You may thank us later.
Author and CEO Of a company called Nicastro Consultants, Doreen Nicastro, has created a Vbook (Video Book) that every parent of a pre-teen and teen should get. The Vbook, called “Have You Googled Your Child’s Name?” is about just that; Googling your child’s name.
Why on earth would you want to do that? Because more and more teenagers are diving into more and more shadowy areas of the internet where you may be able to intervene. Is your child using Facebook without your permission or a different Facebook than the one you thought they had? These are all important questions worth checking out.
This is very real, and not to sound alarmist, but the book is worth a look, or watch in this case. Nicastro who is tech savvy herself, specializes in social media, has children of her own and talks to them about cyber safety, friending, sexting, predators etc daily. Now in her practice she helps parents deal with the aftermath of their children having too much exposure on the internet.
The tips provided in the Vbook can prevent things ranging from sexual abuse, sexual predators, teen gambling, drug use, even suicide.
“Have You Googled Your Child’s Name?” attempts to bridge the generational and digital divide between “digital immigrants,” those who are computer and internet illiterate, and “digital natives” those who are more technically savvy.
“Have You Googled Your Child’s Name?” vBook is divided into six chapters: join the social media revolution, a plea from parents to parents to monitor their children’s social networking activities, kids, current trends on their cyber-activity, a primer on Facebook security settings, best practices and restrictions. The final chapter introduces a values-based approach to social networking.
Do you think this is a non-issue? This summer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was dead serious when he suggested “Young will have to change names to escape ‘cyber past'”
Source: Nicastro Consulting
