posted by admin on Internet Predators, Internet Safety, Online harassment, Parenting, Parenting Teens, Social Networking, Teen Help

The Internet is contributing to the over-sexualization of our daughters. Dr. Albert Bandura, a leading psychologist states, “Must human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” Our girls are observing a lot online and not all of it is good. They are young and there is a lot of peer pressure and a huge audience watching. Get up to speed and learn about these risks and the new pressures they are facing.

Here are 3 Top things that you need to know:

1. Realize that our kids are like wet cement, with a web address and one click, our kids are seeing things that leave impressions that can stay for a life time. Everyday FB pages are inundated with young teen age girls posing sexually and making facebook comments that would make a sailor blush!
2. Know that we are letting our kids play in traffic. The information super highways with billboard pages that scream, “Because sex sells, that’s what you have to advertise”. On top of this, kids are giving a thumbs up “like” to these sexual comments and pictures and no one’s watching. It’s so sad to see young girls attempting to behave in this manner, believing that the more sexual they behave the more “grown” they are. Little girls are no longer princess in the eyes of society, now they have become pin ups for people to “Like”…and that is sad and disturbing.
3. Be mindful what your kids’ eyes are seeing. You can’t un-see something. The eyes often referred to as the windows to the soul. Repeated viewing of sexual content on the internet has the risk of corrupting our kids into thinking that this is “normal” and then attempting to follow to the norm and mimic that behavior. Kids are posting and reposting what they have just learned. The difference is, she is 12 years old and the guy who just liked her post is someone else’s child or an adult.

As parents, we need to protect our kids from the psychological harm of oncoming mental traffic as much as we need to protect them the bodily harm of oncoming physical traffic. It just makes sense.

This post is a contributed by Parenting Today’s Kids.  An educational and resourceful website with many informational articles to help you and your kids navigate through today’s technology safely.

Tags: Internet Safety, Online etiquette, Online privacy, Online Safety, parenting kids online, Parenting Teens, Sexting, social networking