I participated in an Influencer Activation Program on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for BGCA. I received a promotional item to thank me for participating.
Kids today have an unbelievable level of access to information and technology. I am old enough to remember when wanting to know more about a topic involved leaving your house, heading to the library, and using the card catalog to find a resource. And who can forget having to buy an entire album/tape/CD because you really wanted a copy of that one really good song? Now kids can go online and buy that one song with just a few clicks. It truly is a different world in many ways. Unfortunately, these changes have brought challenges that our parents never had to face while raising us. That top song may be just a few clicks away, but so is the bully, the predator, and adult content. In today’s world, it is imperative that parents become cyber smart. You’ve just got to know how to keep you children safe online. Fortunately for parents, Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) has launched the Cyber Safe Futures initiative in support of Internet Safety Awareness, because every teen deserves a #cybersafe future.
BGCA is well known for the work they do for children and families. This initiative is their latest program for building healthy children. I encourage every parent to check out this new site and really explore it. I did! I clicked over and took the Cyber Smart quiz and got Cyber Survivor (yay!). I also submitted a question to the teen CyberTribe, a group of cyber savvy teens who have been trained to help parents deal with social media, mobile phones issues, and other areas of technology that kids have access to today. This group of teens is sponsored by Sprint and they answer questions weekly. An added bonus is that everyone who submits a question is entered for a chance to win an iPad mini and $500 to the Boys & Girls Club of your choice. How cool is that?
Here is a quick list of tools you will find over on the Cyber Safe site:
- Cybersafe glossary
- How to deal with cyberbullying
- Handling social networks
- Mobile phone rule setting ideas
- Protecting privacy online
- CyberSmart quiz
- Ask a question with the CyberTribe
- Resources for teens, too!
The Cyber Safe site is an incredible resource for parents and I encourage you to check it out. Be sure to take the quiz while you are over there! Let’s keep our kids CyberSafe!
About Janice
holy cow that is some great information I didn’t know about a lot of that stuff thanks for sharing that
This sounds great and is so needed. Smartphone apps and social sharing sites geared for kids are popping up faster than we parents can keep up with. Anything that helps monitor online time is fantastic!
I know this is something I will worry about more and more as my boys get older. It is great to know there are resources out there to help and educate to keep kids safe.
This cyber teen tribe is a great resource for sure-they are certainly in the know and our teens may listen more to what their peers have to say then us–great post
This looks like a great resource for parents. Im so glad that my kids never had to deal with this. Neither of them are into being on-line or on social media much…thank goodness. One less thing to worry about 😉
I love that this resource is available to parents. You never know who is out there on the world wide web talking to your child.