RRules and limits are fundamental tools for every good parent. From early childhood to the entire adolescent period, the education of our children passes through respect for those behaviors and these boundaries that have been shared within families over the years. But if studying, tidying up the bedroom or curfew time represent fixed and recognized points, the same sensitivity is not yet felt in the digital sphere. Yet, never like today, the safety and well-being of minors passes through the Internet and the healthy and conscious use of the web and social networks.
Parents Online. Social networks prohibited to minors, and yet…
An integral part of parenting support is also correct information regarding the age at which one can consciously have and manage a social profile.
«We adults are often led to think that if today’s boys and girls are very skilled in using devices, then they can also manage their own social profile. It is not so». Stefania Manetti, President of the Cultural Association of Pediatricians (ACP) denounces the poor perception of many parents on the role of the internet in the growth path of children and teenagers.
The age limit for the entry of minors into social networks
The policies of the various social networks and apps, which range between 13 and 16 years, are regularly disregarded, also with regard to the delivery of the first smartphones in many cases now under ten years of age. «The limit for the entry of minors into the digital world is linked to the knowledge we have today of the maturation and development of the brain», continues Stefania Manetti, «Children are not yet 13/14 years old real critical thinking, adequate to filter the information that can arrive from social media. The mind, whose development is still ongoing, does not properly detect which information is reliable and which is not.” They ask parents to open their own social media profile at an age when it is not allowed and parents often give in and agree.
Pros and cons of social networks: topics to talk about in the family
If you allow your children to enter the world of social networks, it is essential to accompany them. «It’s important to talk openly about the risks of sharing content online and how to be careful to protect your privacy. Some social networks can have a positive function, if used in a conscious and prudent manner, and admitting this, as parents, helps to build a relationship of mutual trust with their children”, adds the ACP President.
The digital dimension is a “place” for our children to inhabit
Discovery, accompaniment, example are crucial aspects for the first steps into the digital dimension. A dimension which, according to the Carolina Foundation experts, the kids live as a real place, rather than a simple instrument. A place to explore and get to know together, enhancing the extraordinary possibilities that the Internet offers, but at the same time learning to recognize risks and dangers, and then, if necessary, ask for help. Just like it happens in the physical world.
In order for our children to live independently online, we must first break down that wall between real and virtual which today no longer has meaning. The construction of the much-cited “digital citizenship” also involves the transmission of universally recognized values, also and above all online.
There Carolina Foundationborn in memory of the fourteen-year-old Carolina Picchio (the first known Italian victim of cyberbullying in Italy), is today committed to the all-round protection of minors online, with national and international activities of awareness-raising, training, advocacy, research and emergency response. From the Research sector, the importance of information on digital and children for caring for the health of one’s children emerged as a priority. Not only with reference to adolescents, but also to protect babies with respect to the correct and conscious use of device, which have now entered everyone’s daily life. Carolina Foundation has created various awareness and information tools for parents, all accessible from the site Minorionline.com.
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