There is little doubt that marketers love kids. With a collective spending power of over three billion dollars, and the potential to influence billions more in family spending, ^[1] marketers are keen to establish brand recognition and brand loyalty with children at increasingly younger ages.

Young Canadians today are growing up in a culture where gambling is legal, easily accessible – especially online – and generally presented as harmless entertainment.

The Internet is revolutionizing how we access and listen to music. The development of MP3s, or digital song files, has made it easy to download virtually any piece of music online.

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 it.

It’s important to note that there is no single profile of a child who bullies. While some fit the traditional image of someone who is generally aggressive and has poor impulse control, others may be very sensitive to social nuances and are able to use that understanding against their targets.^[1]

Verbal or emotional abuse is the most prevalent form of bullying online. Social bullying, another pervasive form – particularly with girls – includes social exclusion and spreading gossip and rumours.

For most youth, the Internet is all about socializing, and while most of these social interactions are positive, increasing numbers of kids are using the technology to intimidate and harass others – a phenomenon known as cyberbullying.

Time spent using devices is one of parents’ top concerns when it comes to their kids’ digital lives – and is the number one source of conflict between parents and children relating to technology use. It’s tempting for parents to act authoritatively and lay down the law on the number of hours their kids can spend on the computer, but in order to effectively address excessive use, there needs to be an active, voluntary commitment on the part of the young person to control their behaviour. Otherwise, kids will just find ways to work around their parents and be left to their own devices once they’re old enough to leave the house.

This tutorial introduces children, ages 7-9, to the concept of online privacy and teaches them to distinguish between information that is appropriate to give out and information better kept private – and to recognize how this may change in different contexts.