Life & Work

The dilemma of every parent

kid

Discuss online safety with your child early. PHOTO | FILE

The growing danger of children falling prey to human traffickers, paedophiles, porn peddlers and cyberbullies has raised concern among many Kenyan parents about online safety.

Florence Busiega, the outreach manager at Amani Counselling Centre and Training Institute, says that cases of children using mobile phones and computers irresponsibly is one of the most common problems cited by parents who seek help at their clinics — alongside adolescent sexuality, drug abuse and indiscipline in schools.

“More and more parents coming to us fear that their children spend too much time on social media and could be accessing porn sites. Unfortunately, a majority of the parents are not familiar with the technology and do not believe they have the skills to monitor and control what their children access on the Internet,” says Ms Busiega.

Last year the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) started an online safety campaign to promote responsible Internet use among children and minimise their exposure to risks.

The campaign dubbed ‘Be the Cop’ followed studies by the telecommunications regulator and child welfare groups that noted an increasing online presence among children aged between 12 and 17 years.

Cyber bullying

A 2013 Unicef study, for instance, found that about half of Kenyan children in this age group who accessed the Internet did so at least once a day while about the same number did so two to three times a day.

The findings of a similar study by the CA in 2015 showed that Kenyan teenagers preferred the smartphone to the home or school computer to go online due to the privacy afforded by the former.

Cyber cafés were found to be the preferred location for teenagers browsing for pornography because of compromised monitoring while places with free Wi-Fi were also popular with the youth relishing the opportunity to save on bundle spending.

Most adult respondents were concerned about children getting exposed to porn while children were worried about cyber bullying.

The CA hopes to back the public awareness created by its ‘Be the Cop’ campaign, supported by child rights and welfare groups like Unicef and ICT firms like Google, with strong legislation to punish cybercrime.

But professional counsellors at Amani say much of the battle for child online safety still has to be fought and won at home.

“Parents have to change their attitude towards technology and learn basic skills to protect their children from potential harm online,” says Ms Busiega, whose organisation has developed an easy-to-follow online safety manual for parents.

James Beautah, a Nairobi-based IT expert who consults for Amani’s training programme, says parents have to wake up to the reality and learn to live with the opportunities and challenges of the Internet.

Many options

“In today’s world a child who is not exposed to technology early will be disadvantaged for the rest of his or her life. So it would be foolhardy for a parent to try to shelter his or her child from the Internet. It isn’t even possible. But parents can’t afford to be left behind. They have to be tech-savvy and they have to be cool to some extent,” says Mr Beautah.

“The saying goes that ‘on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog’ [referring to the danger that comes with anonymity]. For a parent, you can never be sure who your child is speaking to at the other end.”

Parents have a wide range of simple security, privacy and tracking tools available to secure their computers and phones to stop sensitive information about their children falling in the wrong hands, regulate the content viewed by their children and supervise use of the Internet.

Control features

Photo-sharing sites like Snapchat and Instagram also have control features to limit participation by children under 13 while it is possible to approve video playlists on YouTube.

But Mr Beautah and Ms Busiega warn that being tech-savvy is no substitute for the traditional good parenting, which emphasises etiquette, vigilance, discipline and emotional engagement.

“Parents should start discussing online safety at an early age, encourage their children to be tech-savvy but warn them to beware strangers bearing gifts on the Internet, encourage them to browse in the open or not to go online unaccompanied, advise them against falling for phishing attacks and be engaged with them.

However, respect their privacy online otherwise they’ll block you,” says Mr Beautah.

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