Parents need to adapt to the ever-changing risks that today's children encounter online
Millennial and Gen X parents grew up side by side with the internet, stumbling through the painful days of dial-up and America Online in their younger years and then falling head first into Facebook and social media in their twenties. So while people of those age groups feel like we know the internet — and, to a large degree, we do — that doesn’t mean that the dangers we were told to look out for as children online are the same as the dangers kids face today.
We were told to never give away our real names online. (Hence all of those embarrassing AIM screen names — mine was MadonnaMiniMe.) We were warned of stranger danger in chat rooms and private conversations. (Anyone who ever learned what “cybering” meant when they were 12 knows that’s true.) We were told to never reveal our addresses. (Still generally a good call.)
While online grooming is certainly still a concern, kids today are facing a whole host of other obstacles online that parents may or may not be aware of. And that’s totally understandable! Many of these things just weren’t issues yet when we were kids, because the technology literally didn’t exist yet. Just as our parents probably didn’t have a firm understanding of everything that was going on online when we were younger, it’s reasonable that today’s parents are similarly in the dark.
But here’s the thing about being a grown-up: You know more about the world than your kids do, no matter how proficient they are in TikTok. Psychotherapist and author Cat ..
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