Parents Need to Know!

Creating a Public Service Announcement (PSA) ended up being just plain fun.

At first, the directions, as with so many other assignments this semester, seemed a bit ambiguous.  I needed to produce a 60 second PSA about digital citizenship.  Without more specific instruction, I again felt as if I was floundering (and I am not talking about Flounder from Animal House).  The topic was left up to me, the intended audience was left up to me and the overall message was left up to me.  Not enough structure for me!

I began by defining digital citizenship.  What is digital citizenship?  Thanks to all the Dateline “To Catch A Predator” episodes, I was sure that it had to do with the message  “don’t talk to strangers on line.” After a quick Google search, I had many, many definitions.  They included the message “don’t talk to strangers,” along with “don’t bully,” and “don’t post too much personal information,” and many others.  I tried to find a common thread for the K-12 audience.  After thinking about it, I realized that these students have heard all of these messages throughout their school careers just the same as they have heard the fire safety and don’t use drugs spiels every year in school.  Kids know this stuff already.  Be safe online is the message.  That’s when I realized that my audience was not the kids but the parents.

Now that I had my audience and my message of keeping them safe online, how do I present it to the parents?  I thought about all the PSA that stuck in my head.  I know not to litter because I remember the PSA with Native American looking at litter and crying.  Thanks to Smokey the Bear, I know that only I can stop a forest fire.  I know that if I do drugs, I will fry my brain like an egg.  (Had there been a side of bacon in that PSA, I may have reconsidered – just kidding.)  More recently, parents and kids alike have been reminded that knowledge is power, so stay in school and they can bring about change by rocking the vote.  The one I remember the most was the simple, “It’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are” campaign.  I can remember being a smart-ass kid talking back to the tv saying something such as, “I’m right here because my mom won’t let me out of the house past 7:30.”  My parents always knew where I was, and I know that is what kept me safe.  They always knew what I was doing and could cut me off before I could do something really stupid.

I thought an updated version of that message would work.  Parents think their children are safe because they are at home in their rooms, but what parents don’t think about is that the computer is a way that others can join children in their rooms.  Parents need to be vigilant about monitoring their children’s activities.  They need to know their children’s friends, what their children watch on tv AND what they are doing online.  To not do this puts their children in danger.