Google partnerships aim to help parents with their kids’ online safety
Feb 13, 2020
What is a common fear among parents? In short: the internet.
Parents are increasingly concerned about what dangerous content their children might be exposed to and the amount they might (over)share online. Privacy is a challenge, and so are the threat of cyberbullying and overexposure to screen time. The real issue is that there has never been a structured, systematic way to perform training for children's online safety. Over 50% of parents have never received online safety training themselves. There is an increasing desire to have children learn about online safety both in the classroom and by their parents at home.
Where there is a problem, there is an opportunity for transformation. Google has partnered with parent support and child advocacy groups such as the National PTA, YMCA, and Scholastic to create bilingual, comprehensive training in online safety. More than 400 workshops in digital well-being are being held as part of Safer Internet Day. Google already has a program in place called "Be Internet Awesome" and this new partnership is a perfect complement to the groundwork that's already been laid.
Google has created lesson plans for educators and parents and uses gamification to teach online safety to children. These games and lessons will be dispensed to over 50,000 classrooms to increase communication between children, parents, and teachers. This is safety leadership in action.
Read the source article at digitaltrends.com
There are a lot of different things to be concerned about as a parent, but the internet ranks increasingly high on that list. What parent hasn’t worried about what their children might be exposed to and what they might say or share online? We all know about the dangerous content that lurks online, we all fear cyberbullying, and it’s natural to have concerns about screen time. Part of the problem is that most of us were never taught about online safety, so making sure that our kids understand how to stay safe online is challenging.
More than half of parents have never received online safety training, according to a nationwide survey Google conducted, and just 40% feel confident enough to talk to their family about online safety. There’s a growing expectation that kids will be taught about online safety in the classroom. In fact, two out of three parents believe kids should learn about online safety both at home and in the classroom.
To help parents and kids get online safety training Google is partnering with several organizations nationwide, including the National PTA, YMCA, and Scholastic. As part of these partnerships, more than 400 free, bilingual family online safety, citizenship, and digital well-being workshops are being held in 46 states across the country for Safer Internet Day and throughout the week following. This builds on the work that Google is already doing with its Be Internet Awesome program (which is called Be Internet Legends in the United Kingdom).
