TRUST Talking Points for Parents

TRUST is opening in select theaters Friday, April 1st in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Columbus and Oklahoma City.  As our online safety contributors have communicated in their TRUST blog posts, as well as Pete Hammond from Boxoffice  Magazine, TRUST  is “A must-see movie that will have you talking long afterwards.”

We encourage parents to take their teenagers to see TRUST together.  To facilitate a conversation about online safety after watching TRUST, Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE), has put together these useful talking points for parents to discuss with their teens, tweens and kids.

Click here to buy tickets to see TRUST in theatres!

Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE), is an internationally known Internet safety expert and a respected leader of national efforts to protect children online.  Under Donna’s leadership and vision, EIE created the award-winning, multi-media Internet Safety 101SM program to educate, equip and empower parents, educators and other caring adults with the knowledge and resources they need to protect their children form pornography, predators and cyberbullies, as well as how to keep kids safe on social networking sites, gaming and mobile devices.  Donna is the Executive Producer, host, and instructor of the Internet Safety 101SM DVD teaching series, which also features leading experts in the field of law enforcement, education, medicine and technology, as well as compelling testimonies from kids, parents, victims and even a convicted sex offender.  You can find out more Internet safety information, learn about the Internet Safety 101SM program and about Enough Is Enough at www.internetsafety101.org.

Posted in Internet Safety 101, Online Safety, TRUST | 2 Comments

Why Parents and Teens Must Watch TRUST

By Denise Terry, Chief Safety Mom for SafetyWeb

Ask any parent of a teenage girl what their worst nightmare is, and it’s likely you’ll come up with something similar to the script for the new movie ‘Trust’. Directed by David Schwimmer (formerly “Ross” from Friends), ‘Trust’ touches on the very serious topic of responsible use of social networks by children and how ‘disconnected’ parents can become from the inner life of their teenager. In the movie, fourteen-year-old teen Annie meets a boy on a social network who turns out to be not who he says he is. After months of communicating on the Internet and by phone, the two agree to meet in a public place without her parents’ knowledge. After the boy is revealed to be more than twice her age, a confused and shocked Annie becomes the victim of a sexual assault – a parent’s worst nightmare. The fallout from the event includes the victim being harassed by her classmates, the pain and anger felt by her parents, and scrutiny of what others perceived to be bad parenting decisions.

View the official trailer here:

The world has changed radically in the last ten years; the way children interact has changed, and children are often more savvy with technology than their parents are. Our teens are growing up with 24/7 access to Facebook, texting, and a widening technology gap between themselves and their not-always-tech-savvy parents. While technology like Facebook is not to blame for some of the dysfunction that teens display when socializing with each other online, it does behoove parents to get much more involved at a time when it’s so easy for kids to ‘check out’ and not disclose just what’s happening in their daily lives as teens. The movie drives this point home quite dramatically, since ‘Annie’ seems like a normal, happy teenage girl with a good relationship with her parents, and yet she still acts naively and without parental consent when she gets physically involved with the stranger she’s been communicating with online.

The movie “Trust” reminds us that parenting is not a perfect science, and those of us who think ‘It can’t/won’t happen to *my* kid’ really need to wake up and pay attention. Here are some tips:
• Get involved in the online activity of your children, especially on social networking sites like Facebook where people aren’t always who they claim to be.
• Teens like to experiment and sometimes make mistakes, including on sites like Facebook where consequences are not easily ‘erased’ or forgotten. Make sure your child understands that Google and the Internet are their permanent record, so anything posted online can damage their reputation or endanger their safety if they aren’t careful.
• Make sure you talk to your teen about appropriate behavior, before they make these common teen Facebook mistakes
• Know who your children are friends with online, especially over-age friends or friends you haven’t met.
• Just because your child is under Facebook’s “legal age” of 13 years old, don’t assume he or she isn’t one of the millions of tweens sneaking onto Facebook in record numbers each year. Get SafetyWeb, we’ll tell you as soon as your child gets an account with over a hundred sites.
• Get alerts on suspicious or risky content posted to your child or by your child so that you don’t have to read *every single post*, but can still keep track of their safety
• Familiarize yourself with teen issues that your child may eventually confront, such as sexting, Facebookstalking, cyberbullying and teen depression.
• If you or your child discover a Facebook imposter, such as someone impersonating your child online or claiming to be someone they are not (such as a teenage boy when they are a sex offender), report it to Facebook immediately and contact your local police department. Online impersonation is a crime in California, and may soon be if other states follow suit.

For parents, it’s crucial to have in place as early as possible rules and standards about a child’s online activity. The immediate knowledge of new friends, an open discussion of social network activity, and real-time alerts can contribute to a safer online environment for children, but they cannot solve the problem. Children must be responsible for the way they protect their privacy and their own safety on social networks, too.

The movie will be released on Friday, April 1st and is not overly graphic (despite the “R” rating), but does deal with some heavy issues. Parents with teenagers are especially encouraged to see the movie with or without their teenager and discuss topics like how to be safe on Facebook, appropriate social networking and texting etiquette, “house rules” for interacting with friends both online and offline, and why it’s important that parents stay in the loop.

Denise Terry is Chief Safety Mom for SafetyWeb and wants to hear from all parents on the issue of Teens, Trust and Facebook use, please post your comments below on how you maintain open communication and a trust-based relationship with your child in the age of social networks and cellphones. What do you think of the movie ‘Trust’? Will you see it with your teen?

 

 

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Online Safety: Cyberbullying those who are different

In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, the teenage character Annie finds herself the subject of great deal of unwanted and undeserved attention by her high school classmates in a manner in which constituted to all would be unacceptable and falls within the realm of cyberbullying (as the bullying occurred using online media).  We all have encountered instances where those who did not conform or who had experienced something not of the ordinary come under undo scrutiny and are isolated for the experience by their peers.  The scrutiny often times manifests itself into ridicule, sarcasm or insults as those who are observing from afar attempt to differentiate and exclude themselves from the experience.

In Annie’s case, she was surrounded by those who cared deeply about her, but their caring did not equate to their protection.  Though her experience was horrific, her friends and family did not abandon, indeed one would say they circled the wagons, after the fact.  In doing so some of their actions caused additional scrutiny of Annie by those viewing from afar.  These individuals (students) lacked the benefit of familiar ties, depth of friendship or consideration for Annie’s inner psyche.  They instead opted to enter into group-think, a lemming like reaction which becomes further magnified in this online world where information/photos/videos can circulate with unequaled rapidity.  The bad experience can be distorted and characterized inappropriately and incorrectly.  This is exactly what happens to Annie.

In Annie’s example, the parents could and should have been monitoring activities at school and online for any and all reference to their daughter in all contexts.  Photos and videos from student’s smart-phones can and do go viral in seconds, with or without appropriate context attached, and often times without any concern as to how it may have a deleterious effect on the victim.  There is a lack of accountability and responsibility of one’s actions when one thinks they are doing it anonymously, or within the accepted norms of their peers, even when those norms are wrong.

Having in place appropriate monitoring and listening infrastructure is key.  With such infrastructure it may be easier, when necessary, to obtain public and private capabilities to protect the reputation of the child, Annie.  Immediate knowledge of an online event permits the parent to intercede both with their child who is being bullied or besmirched and to use the tools and resources necessary to prevent or reduce the continued distribution of content.  They can use the power of the immediate takedown notices and other legal remedies.  For the more complex there exist a number of paid (for hire) entities which conduct reputation monitoring as a full-time endeavor and have in place varying degrees of infrastructure to monitor and protect one’s online reputation.  These are reactive, after the fact actions.

In Annie’s instance, she had an experience that her peers wished to disassociate them self from and to ridicule in the extreme.  This should never happen, but it does – both in person and online.  Perhaps if we as a society invested in the education of our children during their formative and early education years about the need for compassion, understanding and empathy, then being different won’t be a reason to be bullied, in person or via online technology and we can render moot the term: cyberbullying.

Christopher Burgess (@burgessct) is a humanitarian focused on hunger, slavery, world health and the online safety of our young and elderly.  He serves as the Senior Security Advisor to a Fortune 100 company and previously served as a senior national security executive for more than 30 years. In addition to the United States, he has lived and worked in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Europe, and Latin America where he acquired a deep understanding of the people, cultures, and global issues which we face today. Christopher is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post where he writes on online safety issues and his own blogs: BurgessCT and Veritate et Virtute . He is the co-author of “Secrets Stolen, Fortune Lost, Preventing Intellectual Property Theft and Economic Espionage in the 21st Century.”  Christopher can be contacted at: Christopher@burgessct.com

 

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Online Safety:  Bad things can happen to Good children  

By Christopher Burgess

In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, bad things happen to Annie, a good child.  She is by all appearances a typical teenager – totally wired, online and available, 24/7/365.  As the typical teen, the online interaction includes those with whom she has a personal relationship with a physical quotient: her best friends, family members, and school acquaintances.  She also has availed to her an increased circle of acquaintances about whom her knowledge is limited to their projected online personas.

In the physical world, parents see with whom their child interacts.  As the parents witness this interaction they are able to help guide and influence their child’s choices.  Overtime, the maturation of the child’s decision making skills demonstrates absorption of the lessons, principals and ethics of the parent. The child displays good decision making skills and the level of trust bestowed upon the child and their range of movement may be increased.

Within the online world, it isn’t that different.  The parents continue to have the responsibility to see with whom their child interacts both within their own community and beyond. Though alien for so many parents of today’s teens and tweens, the totally wired child is interacting at a pace which far outstrips the physical world interaction, while not being as easily observable by the parent.

Parents must assist their child online as they do offline.  Parents must be able to note whom their child is engaging and perform the necessary due diligence on the individual.  The parent must also be able to note the frequency and modes of this communication with the “online friends.”  The most important rule to follow when navigating between the online and physical world is when the online friend suggests moving the relationship from virtual to physical.  The number one rule for every family: “The child must not engage in any personal meetings with an individual whom they have only met online without explicit parental permission.”

It is not espionage to know who is reaching out and engaging your child.  When you have a friend pick up your child at school, there is a high likelihood that challenge-words are used between the child and the friend to provide assurance to the child that they can safely get into the vehicle with the parent’s designee.  If an individual approached your child without the challenge-words, your child would react in the manner in which you instructed: “shout and run to the largest number of persons in proximity.”  In the online environment the opportunity for private engagement with your child by an unknown individual is increased by an immeasurable capacity.  The individual child can be engaged by anyone in the world, with an internet connection.

So many attribute their lack of desire to look into what their child is doing online to their desire to trust their child.  One should trust their child, but that level of trust shouldn’t extend to an individual about who so little is known – the online acquaintance and their online persona.  Parents can and should do their own due diligence on those at the other end of the online connection.  Parents can observe and monitor frequency and modes of contact.  In addition to the “no meeting” rule, the next most important rule is all online interaction will occur from a centralized (observable) locale (the laptop in the bedroom should never occur).

The parent can also advantage themselves to any of the numerous software offerings which will provide the internet protocol (IP) addresses with who their devices are engaged.  In this manner, the parent can note all interactions and highlight those worthy of further investigation. If your child’s interlocutor is coming into contact with your child from a variety of geographically diverse locales, that should be considered anomalous and worthy of deeper inspection.  If the child has their own device (laptop or desktop), then you may desire to put a time limit on when the device is allowed to access the internet (in the physical world, when the child leaves the home the parent knows where they are going, who they will be with and when they are expected to return) via regulating the router access.

Mobile telephony is often overlooked.  This is a means by which a child may circumvent the safety net provided by their parents within their home.  Text (SMS) messages, video messages, photos, emails, and chat are all a part of the normal offering from today’s smart phones and warrant the same level of observation provided to the devices within the home.  With respect to mobile devices one can review the device itself and also review the billing and call records in the same manner one would for the IP addresses.  Again, there is available a plethora of applications designed to lock-down and regulate the areas of the accessible internet writ-large for mobile devices.

The protection of your children is important.  You can honor their privacy and enhance their protection by guiding your child in the online world just as you would in the physical world.  In doing so, you will greatly reduce the opportunity for a malevolent person from making the adage “bad things to happen to good children” a reality.

Christopher Burgess (@burgessct) is a humanitarian focused on hunger, slavery, world health and the online safety of our young and elderly.  He serves as the Senior Security Advisor to a Fortune 100 company and previously served as a senior national security executive for more than 30 years. In addition to the United States, he has lived and worked in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Europe, and Latin America where he acquired a deep understanding of the people, cultures, and global issues which we face today. Christopher is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post where he writes on online safety issues and his own blogs: BurgessCT and Veritate et Virtute . He is the co-author of “Secrets Stolen, Fortune Lost, Preventing Intellectual Property Theft and Economic Espionage in the 21st Century.”  Christopher can be contacted at: Christopher@burgessct.com

 

Posted in Christopher Burgess, Online Safety | 3 Comments

TRUST and Our Call to Action

This posting was written by Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam the founder of SSP Blue, the leading advisory firm for online safety, security, and privacy challenges facing corporations and governments.

I recently wrote about TRUST, an upcoming movie that tells the story of 14 year-old Annie from a wonderful family who falls victim to an Internet predator and how true to life the movie is.  At the end, we are left with a lingering feeling of how to make sure this doesn’t happen to me or anyone I know.  As parents, we get protective and angry all the while feeling helpless.

There is, in fact, a call to action that arises out of TRUST.

As parents we spend countless hours talking to our kids about safety, stranger danger, avoiding danger, and staying away from strangers.   Built into all of these messages and lessons is actually a core concept – we are teaching our kids to build relationships with people they trust and not to go near those they don’t.

We’ve done a tremendous job of teaching how to trust in the real world.  And therein lies our call to action in the digital century.

Even though the online world has become a living thing that mirrors and reflects our physical world realities, our teachings have only just begun to bring those physical world lessons online.  Unfortunately, the online world doesn’t give us the opportunity to look into a stranger’s eyes and decide whether we trust them.  As adults and children, we often will be more trusting online than we will be offline.

So, here is our opportunity.  Take whatever happens online and put it in the real world and ask yourself questions you already ask everyday when interacting with new acquaintances:

-       How does what they did make me feel?

-       How does what they said (typed) make me feel?

-       Should I believe them the next time they lie?

-       Should I like them less now that they have lied to me?

-       Should I give them another chance to re-gain my confidence in them?

-       What if they do it again?

-       Can I trust them?

Take the time to see TRUST when it comes out in April and talk to your kids about trust online.  You’ve already done a great job in the real world, keep the dialogue going.

-by Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam

Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam is the founder of SSP Blue, the leading advisory firm for online safety, security, and privacy challenges facing corporations and governments. A veteran of online security, he brings over 20 years of experience in private industry, government, and law enforcement. He has been called upon by institutions from the United Nations to The White House to provide counsel on the world’s most critical online protection challenges and has been a featured expert by BBC, BusinessWeek, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

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The Reality of TRUST

This posting was written by Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam the founder of SSP Blue, the leading advisory firm for online safety, security, and privacy challenges facing corporations and governments.

I had the honor of being asked by Millennium Entertainment to a screening of the upcoming movie TRUST, directed by David Schwimmer, and starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener.  As the credits rolled at the end, I was left with a host of emotions from pain to sadness and with re-ignited memories of the Internet predators I had prosecuted as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice and the young girls whose lives they had destroyed forever.

And as I left the screening room, I kept thinking how much TRUST is true to life in the digital century and how much we as parents might not realize the truth about Internet predators.   We call them ‘Internet’ predators, but in fact, they are actual human beings intent on attacking a child in the real world.  The movie focuses carefully on the ‘grooming’ process where a predator meets an unsuspecting teenager online and slowly begins a friendship designed to break down her natural barriers and eventually grooms her into believing that she is truly in love with this person who is really not who he claims to be.

What was most telling about the thoughtful analysis that went into this movie is the fact that ‘Annie’ the 14-year-old victim was experiencing a series of events that put her at risk and, thus, at the mercy of a predator.  Her father was busy at work, her brother whom she had a special bond with was going away to college, her desire to be with a certain crowd wasn’t happening, and she was desperate to make it onto the volleyball team.  In fact, a child at risk in the physical world becomes at risk online.  Annie was such a child.  And, in essence, we saw how a perfect family with amazingly loving parents could fall prey to a predator, for when Annie was traumatized, so too was her family.

So, as a society we all need to know that this can happen to any of our families and we must work together to help our kids navigate safely in the digital world just like we have in the physical world for so many years.

I will talk about just what those calls to action are next time.  In the meantime, trust me, when I say that TRUST is true to life in the digital century.

-by Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam

Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam is the founder of SSP Blue, the leading advisory firm for online safety, security, and privacy challenges facing corporations and governments. A veteran of online security, he brings over 20 years of experience in private industry, government, and law enforcement. He has been called upon by institutions from the United Nations to The White House to provide counsel on the world’s most critical online protection challenges and has been a featured expert by BBC, BusinessWeek, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

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Establishing an On Going Dialogue

This posting was written by Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE)

In our work at Enough Is Enough, one of they key resources we point parents to is our Internet Safety Rules ‘N Tools®, the non-technical and technical safety measures we encourage parents to implement across all Internet-enabled devices.  Often parents ask us about the real-world applications of setting healthy-boundaries and technology measures in place.

Of course, if your children are young, establishing Internet Safety Rules ‘N Tools® will be much simpler to do; you can establish age-appropriate parental controls and house rules that grow and develop with your child.  Now, if you have a teenager and you have not yet established clear Internet safety rules of use or utilized any type of parental control tool, then our Rules #1, of   establishing an ongoing dialogue and atmosphere of trust will serve an even more important part as you seek to effectively parent in your child’s online life.

Help your teen know that he or she can safely bring any online incidents to your attention, without being blamed or having the Internet banned from your home.  If you neglect to build a trust relationship with your child, you will probably never hear what happens online.  Trust building with your teen must be an intentional process, it doesn’t happen automatically.  It requires commitment and time, and your children may test you on both of these.

There is no substitute for spending quality time with your child, both offline and online. When children perceive that we are genuinely interested in them and their online world, they will be more willing to trust us with their insecurities, frustrations and fears.  Sadly, the opposite is also true.  If they perceive that we don’t care to listen, trust will not be built.  Parents need to stimulate discussion, dialogue and the sharing of ideas about their kid’s online world so their kids understand the very real dangers of the web while also helping them to take part in the solution.  Walk your teen through scenarios and provide them with space to think creatively and critically about the very real issues of online security.

In the film TRUST, Annie’s parents are only proximately aware of her online interactions with “Charlie”, someone who is pretending to be a 16-year-old boy, whom Annie met through an Internet chat room for volleyball players.  Had Annie’s parents had intentional, ongoing dialogue about online safety with Annie, both Annie and her parents would have been better prepared and informed to prevent the tragedy that later struck their family.

Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE), is an internationally known Internet safety expert and a respected leader of national efforts to protect children online.  Under Donna’s leadership and vision, EIE created the award-winning, multi-media Internet Safety 101SM program to educate, equip and empower parents, educators and other caring adults with the knowledge and resources they need to protect their children form pornography, predators and cyberbullies, as well as how to keep kids safe on social networking sites, gaming and mobile devices.  Donna is the Executive Producer, host, and instructor of the Internet Safety 101SM DVD teaching series, which also features leading experts in the field of law enforcement, education, medicine and technology, as well as compelling testimonies from kids, parents, victims and even a convicted sex offender.  You can find out more Internet safety information, learn about the Internet Safety 101SM program and about Enough Is Enough at www.internetsafety101.org.

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Internet Safety Rules ‘N Tools®: Parents are the First Line of Defense

This posting was written by Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE)

The Internet is a wonderful resource, providing opportunities for our children to connect, create, collaborate and learn in ways we never imagined just a generation ago.  Unfortunately, despite the Internet’s many wonderful benefits, a number of factors have converged to create a “perfect storm scenario” for the online victimization of children.  Through the Internet, kids have free and easy access to pornography, and sexual predators have easy and anonymous access to kids.  Law enforcement limitations and challenges abound, and naïve kids are engaging in risky online behavior. Parents must be the first line of defense to protect kids online, but oftentimes, parents are uninformed, overwhelmed or ill-equipped to deal with the ever-changing nature of the Internet.

This is the very reason we created the Internet Safety 101SM Program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice.  The state-of-the-art, multi-media program is specifically designed to educate, equip, and empower parents, educators and other caring adults with the knowledge and resources they need to protect children online.

We believe that just as proactive parental involvement and guidance is necessary to help children avoid other, offline pitfalls in life, such as alcohol or drug abuse, our active participation in online experiences is just as critical to the safe and healthy development of our children.

The most important piece of advise I can give you is to recognize that no child is immune from Internet dangers, not even yours. The “not my kids, maybe someone else’s kids” myth simply does not apply to the online world.  One of the many realities depicted in the film TRUST is that any middle-American family with great kids, and good, involved parents can still fall prey to online dangers. Unfortunately, the parents in TRUST, excellently portrayed by Clive Owens (dad) and Catherine Keener (mom), didn’t realize the reality of online dangers and the vulnerability of their own daughter to those dangers.

While there is no silver bullet to keep kids safe in the virtual space, the good news is that you don’t need a Ph.D. in Internet technology to be a great cyber-parent.  However, you do need to make a commitment to become familiar with the technology your children use and to stay current with Internet safety issues. As this blogging series has highlighted, we encourage parents to implement basic non-technical (safety rules) and technical resources (software tools)—we call them Internet Safety “Rules ‘N Tools®” — across all Internet-enabled devices to protect their children from online harm: one without the other simply is not enough.  In our next blog, we will talk about how important it is to build an atmosphere of trust as you implement these and other safety measures to protect your children online.

Donna Rice Hughes, President & CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE), is an internationally known Internet safety expert and a respected leader of national efforts to protect children online.  Under Donna’s leadership and vision, EIE created the award-winning, multi-media Internet Safety 101SM program to educate, equip and empower parents, educators and other caring adults with the knowledge and resources they need to protect their children form pornography, predators and cyberbullies, as well as how to keep kids safe on social networking sites, gaming and mobile devices.  Donna is the Executive Producer, host, and instructor of the Internet Safety 101SM DVD teaching series, which also features leading experts in the field of law enforcement, education, medicine and technology, as well as compelling testimonies from kids, parents, victims and even a convicted sex offender.  You can find out more Internet safety information, learn about the Internet Safety 101SM program and about Enough Is Enough at www.internetsafety101.org.

Posted in Internet Safety 101, Online Safety, TRUST | 1 Comment

It’s more than a Game, it’s your Life” – Safer Internet Day 2011

Today is international Safer Internet Day, an annual event dedicated to promoting responsible use of the Internet and mobile technology, particularly among children and youth. Safer Internet Day is organized by the Brussels based, Insafe, which was cofounded by the European Union. The topic for Safer Internet Day 2011 is “our virtual lives” around the slogan “It’s more than a game, it’s your life”. Insafe created the below video for this year’s event:

Digital leaders, Yahoo! and Microsoft are also participating in Safer Internet Day. Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Safely, a website devoted to offering parents, teens and kids tips on how to safely interact online. Microsoft partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of America and organized “Family ‘Online’ Game Nights” where families are invited to play with the Kinect for the Xbox 360 while discussing gaming online safety. There will also be online safety materials available at these events. The events will be held in three cities: Atlanta (February 8), Chicago (February 10) and Los Angeles (February 15).

We are commemorating Safer Internet Day by premiering the TRUST trailer on Apple Trailers. Our goal with the TRUST campaign is to shed more light and offer useful resources on the issue of online safety.  Check out the TRUST Trailer below:

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Internet Safety Rules N’ Tools® Checklist

You watch any teen, tween, kid or even toddler using a smart phone or computer and you can instantaneously see their tech-savvy and ease navigating the Internet. As impressive as kids’ and teen’s Internet intuitivism and skills are, they often lack the wisdom and insight to know which websites and cyber habits are safe, ethical and appropriate for their developing minds and personhoods.

Even for tech-savvy parents, monitoring their children’s online behavior can be a daunting task. The ever-changing digital landscape makes it incredibly challenging for parents and educators to remain informed about the various dangers lurking online. Just as in the film TRUST, even very involved parents can be oblivious of the un-safe activities their children are engaging in on the Internet.

Enough Is Enough, our online safety partner whose goal is to educate, equip and empower parents and educators on online safety issues, has created the extremely useful Rules N’ Tools® Checklist as part of its multi-media Internet Safety 101 resource. The checklist covers the technical and non-technical safety basics, such as establishing an ongoing dialogue and setting age-appropriate filters, which can be implemented to safeguard children while they are online. You can download the Rules N’ Tools® Check List here.

Visit Internet Safety 101 for more information on Internet Safety Rules N’ Tools®, helpful videos, a glossary of often misconstrued Internet vocabulary and much more!

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