We all know that Internet is beneficial to every one in endless ways. It is even helpful to kids in many ways except that they cannot do business or work online to make money. But still if approached in right way internet can offer positive benefits to your kid’s knowledge and development.
First let us look at the positive points that internet can offer your kids. Internet connects people globally and allows your kids to meet new friends from different parts of the world. Your kids can learn much about the cultural differences and societies existing in different regions. Internet is a limitless pool of knowledge and information; hence kids can be more informative than ever just by a click. Internet is also a source of entertainment for kids; they can play good online games with friends or watch movies and videos online. The list goes on and on, there are so many useful things that can be done in internet unless the kids try to misuse it.
On the other hand demerits of kids using internet is as many as the merits. Here we will discuss the three main demerits:
Cyberbullying is similar to kids bullying in school, except that this one happens in your kid’s room. Cyberbullying can sometimes be more harmful than school bullying as there are no teachers or friends to stop them from doing so. The other person can humiliate, harass, threaten, use offensive words or photos, embarrass, use harsh words which can hurt your child’s self-esteem.
Sexual Exploitation: It is very easy to create a false identity in the internet. The internet predators always use false identity to lure kids into their trap. Their main targets are children and teenagers. They try to extract your kid’s personal information and if they can’t then they will try to offer gifts or attractive offers to kids, in some cases advance cash for a promised job. Once your kids fall into this trap the outcome may be very dangerous, because the next thing the predator will offer is an offline meeting.
Cyberstalking is when a predator relentlessly come after the victim online and also aim to attack them offline. If the kids are not smart enough this online attacks can anytime become offline attacks. Therefore the kids should never disclose any of their personal information to anyone online. This includes real name, address, phone number, credit card details, school name and even the places where they hang out.
These are just three possibilities that we have discussed. There are many more dangers for kids who uses internet without precautions. It becomes the duty of the parents to teach them about the dangers and also install a proper Parental Control Software in order to avoid any kind of regrets in future.