You Tube

Saturday, November 7, 2009

The other night, my 5-year old decided she was going to hijack my computer. You see, I had been looking up music videos on You Tube. She loves music and enjoys the Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack. She asked me to look up some of those videos…she was suddenly hooked. I watched her as she processed different video links, enthralled that she could hear or see anything she chose with just a click of a button. She then asked me to look at some Land Before Time videos and it went from there.

I was monitoring this as it was happening. A little while into her exploring the wonderful world of You Tube, I needed to take a call. In the three minutes that I was away on the phone, I walked back into the room my daughter was in, to hear a video laced with profanity. Someone had placed a song over one of the videos. She had no idea what she had clicked on. I quickly took control and got her back on track. Now, anytime I have my computer out, she requests to see videos because there are so many options.

The point of this story is that children are learning younger and younger how to work computers. I still had typing class in high school...yes, on a typewriter. My daughter has computer sessions in Kindergarten. The shift in technology has made it so much harder to control what our kids stumble upon. Absolutely anything is accessible online, and our kids usually know how to get there. Of course with this, comes much more danger than we could have anticipated. However, we CAN monitor when we aren’t actually there. With McGruff Safeguard, we can keep track of the conversations and friends that our kids are engaging with and having online.

I know that at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is our kids’ safety, both physically and mentally. McGruff Safeguard is free a free service. Help us help you keep your kids safe online.

Labels: internet safety, Land before time, Spirit, You Tube