Resources for Parents - Interactive Media

Parents’ Guide to Instagram

Give your kids the guidance they need.

MediaSmarts is pleased to announce that we have partnered with Instagram and Connect Safely to launch a Parents’ Guide to Instagram to help prepare you to give your kids the guidance they need.

Managing Media: Back to School Tips for Parents (2014)

he beginning of another school year is here, and as it does many parents are beginning to wonder how they can help their kids ease out of summertime media habits. In addition to having to establish new rules for media use, parents may also face a barrage of requests and questions from their kids regarding digital technology, such as: Am I old enough to have a cell phone? Can I bring it to school? How about my iPod? What about Facebook or Twitter – all my friends are on them, I need to use them to talk about my homework!

Help! Someone shared a photo of me without my consent! – Tip Sheet

  1. You can start by asking the person who shared it to take it down or stop sharing it. Kids report that this works more often than not!
  2. Ask the service or platform where it was shared to take it down. If you’re under 18, they may be required by law to take it down, and most also have a policy of taking down any photos that were shared without the subject’s permission.

Doing Good with Social Media

My teens are still young and new to social media, so until now, we’ve mostly been focusing on the risks. Our main message to them has been to be careful, and that less time online is always better.

How Parents Can Promote Ethical Online Behaviours with Kids

We generally think of our kids’ online and offline lives as being two separate things. In reality, they constantly overlap, flowing back and forth face-to-face in the schoolyard and through texts and social networks at home. But on the Internet there are lots of moral and ethical choices that don’t have to be made offline.