So, you want to become a parenting influencer
If you are a parent and you’ve been thinking of starting a blog, writing for parenting magazines, or becoming a social media influencer in the parent sphere, keep reading.
If you are a parent and you’ve been thinking of starting a blog, writing for parenting magazines, or becoming a social media influencer in the parent sphere, keep reading.
Cyberbullying is everyone’s business and the best response is a pro-active or preventative one. From the outset, we can reduce the risks associated with internet use if we engage in an open discussion with our children about their online activities and set up rules that will grow along with them. Cyberbullying is strongly connected with moral disengagement – the ways we can fool ourselves into thinking it’s all right to do something we know is wrong or to not do something we know is right – so activating kids’ empathy and moral judgment is a key aspect of preventing both offline and online bullying.
With Christmas approaching, video games are the one media industry that seems recession-proof, with games topping many wish lists. Parents, though, can find it difficult to tell just what they're buying for their children. They may know about Grand Theft Auto, for instance, but may wonder what kind of sins are in Sins of a Solar Empire. Of course, nobody wants to disappoint their children: if parents decide not to buy Gears of War, will little Johnny be happy with Rock Band instead? Fortunately, there are both tools and techniques at hand to help parents identify games they might find inappropriate and also to pick appropriate games their children will like.
Witnesses play a critical role when they witness acts and forms of bullying” and may suffer negative effects that are as bad as or worse than those suffered by the target. At the same time, there is evidence that youth who witness some kinds of cyberbullying may actually be more likely to perpetrate it themselves later.
One of the biggest changes in our understanding of bullying has been an increased awareness of the important role witnesses play in any bullying situation. This has been partially because of cyberbullying, which makes it possible for witnesses to be invisible, to join in anonymously, to revictimize a target by forwarding bullying material – or to intervene, to offer support to the target and to bear witness to what they have seen. Just as we're coming to realize how important witnesses to bullying are, though, we need to be careful to recognize how complex their role is.
A few years ago, I mostly stopped using filters on my Instagram photos and stories. I had been using ones that weren’t intentionally changing the way I looked - or at least, I wasn’t trying too hard for that. I was selecting ones that bettered my lighting or made me look less tired.
While tech has become integrated in the lives of parents and teens, there are positives and negatives that come with it. One problem? When our handheld devices affect our sleep – and this is a particular issue for teens.
I think every kid should know how to swim. It’s one of those crucial life skills that must be in everyone’s arsenal. That’s why my husband and I introduced our kids to water at the earliest possible opportunity. First in the bath and the shower (okay, so maybe these are more about hygiene), and then we graduated to sprinklers and inflatable pools, wading pools, beaches, and lakes. As soon as the kids were old enough we signed them up for swimming lessons.