parenting Archives - Page 3 of 5

July 8, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

What will facebook’s graph search expose?

Facebook started trialling graphsearch in January 2013 with a limited beta rollout. With the help of the feedback from those testing the program, it is now ready to hit the millions of facebook users in facebook land.

First cab off the rank will be those in the USA and with English US language settings, but the rest of the world will not be far behind.

In many ways, graphsearch is really exciting. It will allow you to find services and business close by and help you find long lost friends, lets you search for locations and people in them, depending on the original privacy settings of the posts and profiles. Search is faster, it makes suggestions and links to BING to improve results when you can’t find them on facebook.

This makes is a good opportunity for you to have a really good search of your information and make changes to settings on albums, location check ins and the like before the roll out. Certainly continue to monitor your content after the roll out if you run out of time!

What graph search can do:

Lets you search for people and friends with similar interests (for example people who like a particular artist, musician, film, tv show)
Search for friends in particular locations (useful when travelling)
Search for photographs, for example if you enter “photographs of dogs” you will find photos your friends have posted as well as any public ones.
Search for themes such as films watched by dentists (if occupation is provided on a profile)
SEARCH RESULTS WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE – depending on their privacy settings and the privacy settings of their friends.
Combine any of the above (for example photos of people in New York with dogs)

What it can’t (yet):

Access individual status updates (this one will have some big consequences for some people)
Doesn’t work on mobile apps
It can’t leverage from third party applications such as instagram.

What you should do:

Everyone: Start reviewing your content and “spring clean” your pages. Get some friends together and sort out your facebook privacy. It really helps to have a friend there to check what comes up on a search. You could even make a bit of a party out of it. Have a last laugh before you remove content and tags!

Don’t be afraid to ask someone to untag you or remove photographs. Please ask politely.

Use your activity log (you will find access to your activity log on the right side of your timeline cover pic) to review information.

Parents : You MUST sit down with your children who use facebook and go through this post and the settings together. Have a conversation about just where things might end up. Issues can arise when teens for example have tagged a photo of someone (whether will ill intent or in teen “fun”) with a word like “dog” or “pig” and suddenly a search for pigs or dogs brings up photos of people. On one hand, at least you find them and can take action, on the other hand, there may be serious consequences particularly is inappropriate language or degrogatry terms have been used against a person.

Schools: Review what is being said about the school. In many ways this search is a bonus as it will expose those sites which are not officially run by the school and enable the school a chance to “clean up” and if you don’t already have an official page, then it’s time to “own” the space. iRespectOnline can assist schools in these matters. Please contact us at mail@irespectonline.com .

Businesses: Make sure you and your staff are only posting relevant material to your pages and review for spam. If you haven’t developed an engagement policy for your business, it’s time to! It’s a great time to consider your online reputation and make sure your brand is being portrayed accurately online. If you would like our help, email us at mail@irespectonline.com with your requirements.

Facebook have put together comprehensive instructions and information on graph search, so head over to their page here and start checking out your settings now! Please drop back to let us know your opinion and any concerns you may have with facebook graph search. The background story behind graph search is also pretty interesting, so if you like to know how it came about, this post from The Next Web is informative.
Fiona Lucas

Author Futureproof Your Kids

July 6, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

Gambling and your child

Accessibility and availability of games and applications which encourage or simulate gambling are saturating the market for children in the 12-17 age group.

The Victorian Responsible Gambling foundation (VRGF) is working hard to generate awareness of the possible massive social issues which our children may face in the next few years if we don’t get proactive on this important issue.

Often we don’t even correlate the games our children are playing with gambling, however any game which rewards with credits and bonuses may be actually “grooming” our children to have issues in the future. According to research collated by the VRGF there has been a huge explosion in online and mobile gambling apps which are created in such a way as to avoid the regulation of the traditional gambling market. They do this because winnings cannot be rewarded as cash. We should be concerned.

Many parents and teachers see gambling games as being a good learning activity, and in the right environment, with controls this can indeed be true. What is vital is that we ensure we are monitoring the usage and behavior of the children when they are using such apps, and providing education on the addictive nature of such games.

The term “free to play” is deceptive as certainly early levels may have no cost, but quick rewards encourage the purchase of add on credits and upgrades, and many apps also are saturated with in app advertising which is designed to appear as part of the game. In Australia alone in 2011 the free to play industry turned over more than $60 million worth of business – that’s a lot of upgrades and addons.

With a choice on iTunes alone of over 50 million apps (all apps – not just games – May 2013) the lack of industry regulation is certainly raising its head. Add into this the many games available on facebook and we can see the increasing risk of potential gambling problems. The addictive nature of games can be seen in the longevity of apps on facebook such as Farmville2 and Candy Crush saga both of these apps have over 40 million users per month, with an average daily user count of 15 million for Candy Crush and 8 million for Farmville2. Here’s a fact that might really make you sit up .. King who own Candy Crush and who do not release their profit figures, is believed to have turned over more than 500 million in profit last year – staggering!

The fact the apps are portable and readily accessible on multiple devices means that once a player has a problem, the problem can follow them everywhere!

Behaviours and symptoms to look out for in your children include:

spending more and more time playing
conversation revolve around the app or around wins and losses
skipping school or work
falling grades at school
lying about using the app or how much game play is actually occurring
concealing actual spend on the app
borrowing or stealing money to be able to continue playing
mood swings, depression, irritability, particularly when not able to play

As we stress at irespectonline, when it comes on online behaviours our children tend to imitate what they see. Be very wary of gambling or celebrating wins in front of young children, who may not yet be able to understand the risks and the poor odds of winning.

For more information regarding apps and safety you can download our tip sheets (written in collaboration with our colleague Mel at Social Ediquette)

Join the 100 day gambling challenge now! If you or someone you know has a problem with gambling, seek help here or call the gambling help line 1800 858 858

Fiona Lucas

iRespectOnline® – Your Social Media Mirror

Have you checked your reflection lately?

*information for this post was sourced from the Responsible Gambling Guide, Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation 2013, iTunes and the writers own opinion.

June 28, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

What parents REALLY need to know about social media

There is so much information online for parents these days it is hard to know where to turn, it can be pretty confusing, and time consuming trying to cover it all. So many ebooks and articles and blogs on safety and apps and etiquette (we here at iRespectOnline have written many of them!).

Last year (2012), after seeing the career aspirations of one young teen smashed due to inappropriate photographs being posted online and found by a prospective employer, I knew I had to write a book to really EMPOWER parents with knowledge and to help them to understand the importance of guiding their children from the earliest ages possible. It took me just over a year to write as my father had a stroke just before I was due to finish it, but I am so pleased that it is now available and is being very well received.

Futureproof your Kids© encompasses my passion for not only educating parents in understanding the online world but of empowering our children to be the SUPERKIDS of the future online. Children who grow up respecting integrity and high values.

I never set out to write “another” guide book on privacy settings and the like as social media platforms change so often. Through collaborative efforts, I already have wonderful series of helpful tip sheets produced with my lovely colleague Mel Rom at Social Ediquette™ in Perth, WA. (We update these often to keep them on track with the latest changes).

Instead I have a produced a book from the heart, designed to help readers to really think and consider what our online interactions mean for ourselves and others, both now and in the future. The book is designed to assist parents with the issues they are really struggling with – where to begin, how to help their children, and to understand the benefits as well as be aware of safety and issues such as cyberbullying. Beyond that, this book introduces my 4 Step Reputation Framework© which I am so excited about.

This framework encompasses a set of ethics and values which our children can use throughout their lives. Introducing the values via 4 cute characters (created by my amazing illustrator Deb Parker) we meet Ruby Respect, Robert Responsibility, Rosie Resilience and Ronnie Research. These characters form an integral part of the content of my education workshops for parents and schools.

Further “superkid” superhero characters are introduced as we progress through the workshops. The values are valuable for adults to embrace also, as it is from parents and other adults that our children tend to model their early behaviours on. We need to keep checking our own “reflection” in the social media mirror!

IT IS NEVER TOO EARLY OR TOO LATE TO START LEARNING ABOUT THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT. Whether your child is under 2 or 16 we should not allow a digital divide to develop between our children and ourselves when it comes to understanding the online environment. You need to be there, to help guide your children through the social media “playground” . Grandparents, Aunty’s, Uncle’s and neighbours too, should all understand the environment so you can work together to create a consistent approach to the use of social media where your children are concerned.

It’s not just parents and children who can benefit from my framework, I also have a “grown up” workshop version of the 4R’s Reputation Framework© for businesses who wish to embrace a more ethical, transparent and connected approach to the way they engage online with their clients, customers and prospects.

I look forward to sharing future posts with you that explore the contents of the book and perhaps engaging with you at a workshop at your school or community group soon!

Respectfully

Fiona Lucas

Author

Futureproof your kids© is currently available to Australian parents in paperback form from our website and at www.futureproofyourkids.com. Kindle/electronic formats of the book are currently under development and will be available globally in the near future. We encourage purchasing the hard copy so it can be shared around your family and always nearby for reference :-).

Enquiries for international and/or bulk orders should be made directly to the author via the contact form:

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Enquiry Type’ type=’radio’ options=’international enquiry,bulk order,school enquiry,workshop enquiry,keynote speaking enquiry,Other’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

iRespectOnline®

Your social media mirror. Have you checked your reflection lately?

June 21, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

Reputation repair required or not? Miley Cyrus

After seeing just some of Miley Cyrus’ new video clip I have to wonder what happens to these girls? They must get bullied and pressured for having played a sweet character, or their hearts broken so that they feel they have to show the world (or someone) something. Sadly what they don’t show is any maturity – just a discovery of the use of their body parts to sell. The sad thing is that Miley’s following came from the thousands of little ones who adored her role in Hannah Montana. These little fans helped to “make her” – but then she has turned away with a vengeance.

Why isn’t it ok to be a “nice girl” anymore? The video is a “look at me I can do sex” clip – and I just wonder how she will feel in a few years time when she looks back at it, particularly if she becomes a Mum herself. Why is it necessary to create this “porno style” of clip? Writhing with her backside in the air, demonstrating that she has recently visited her waxer by pulling down the front of her pants and having smoke coming out of places that – well maybe you might find down the alleys in Thailand along with the pingpong balls and sparrows. Seriously I find it tragic because there appears to be a lack of self respect, it is all ego and gloss and so trashy. The girl can sing, but there really are no clean lyrics (as in everything has been digitalised and toyed with). If it’s a coming of age song where she has discovered the lustier part of life, is there any reason for the kind of writhing she does? In some way maybe she is actually taking the Pi** out of these kinds of clips as it is so over the top, but for some reason I don’t really believe that!

As parents we know how much our kids love music, they love dancing and they love to copy moves – but would anyone really be comfortable seeing a group of 8 year olds writhing on the ground and copying these poses? They might not understand right now what it means, but it concerns me that this is how our young people grow up so hung up on how they look.

I’m not a prude, I just don’t see the need for this stuff in every damn clip that comes out. It’s like all these girls with beautiful voices have to outdo each other in the “lets show grandma what good time girls we are” poses. The use of visuals depicting S&M and the kinkier side of life – well that’s fine for adults who know how to deal with it, but young children are being sexualised by these images and I don’t think we are doing our society any favours. (Sexualisation can be defined as: The imposition of adult sexuality on to children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it, mentally, emotionally or physically*). Do we really want to be encouraging our under 10′ and 12’s to be so sexually aware? Childhood is a time of innocence – or so it should be – a time when we are truly free of prejudice and other “stuff” that comes with growing up. There is no need to rush the process surely?

People will say “sex sells”.. but I’d like to think that she could be sexy and sing without looking like a porn star. I’m wondering what’s happening to that industry when more and more of it is becoming mainstream – actually I don’t really want to wonder too much at all!

I really don’t care what you want to look at, but we know that gyms, and doctor studios, waiting rooms and stores play current videos all the time and children are going to see these kinds of film clip, children who haven’t get identified themselves or understood enough about themselves to start comparing and copying these clips. The whole “twerking” which is jerking and jiggling your butt is not done in a fun way – it’s very sexual, and on her facebook site she encourages fans to post vidoes of themselves “twerking”, and in the song, and comments on the site if someone objects to, or doesn’t like the song they are called “haters”. It really makes me sad.

The song is some kind of rebellous ‘we can do what we want” song but it’s hardly original lyrically. Sure you can do what you want (hopefully keeping it legal) – but do you have to do it in front of everyone? Apparently what “we want” is to tongue kiss dolls and rub each others butts whilst having some kind of stimulated orgy?

I despair when I hear of stories of birthday party themes for early teens that rather than be a pyjama party are now “slut parties”! Worse still, stories of children aged 7 & 8 talking about having sex? Dr Joe Tucci from the Australian Childhood foundation was recently quoted as saying “A decade ago we were referred kids as young as seven involved in pulling down pants, now it is penetrative acts, simulated or actual sexual acts and it starts at seven and eight”. You can read the article here.

Where is the integrity in this? What are these “role models” creating in our future generations? Many might say they “are not role models”, but when you are in the public arena, needing that adoring public to be the creators of your income, then I think there is a responsibility that must go with that.

I’d really love to know what you think? Particularly if you have children under 10. If you (or your kids) are adoring Miley fan’s – do you just blindly accept what she does and love it, or do you kind of wonder where she is going with this and why? It’s not knew, Madonna was doing some pretty sexy stuff in the 80’s but we didn’t have pocket access to videos and were lucky if were were playing “pong” on our computers. I think most movie clips were heavily censored before 9pm if they were played at all. Are kids seeing more than they are ready for, has the quality gone down and the “detail” gone up in these clips?

What is your view?

Fiona.

*as defined in a 2010 UK study into the sexualisation of children.

May 28, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

Online superheroes Simple but positive action -: Smile online

As passionate as I am about raising awareness for change in the way we engage online, I had an interesting “comment debate”* on someone’s wall about taking action in the area of online safety and cyberbullying. As someone who is proactive about change and commited to bringing respect, ethics and higher values into the online environment, I was quite interested in their view that my business, my blogs, workshops and my book did not constitute action in this person’s eyes. They spoke about joining organisations to volunteer time on help lines etc as being action.

It is so vital that we do man help lines in order to address the suffering of others, and I certainly hope that the information I share and the openness of my blog and facebook pages offers value for those seeking help, along with the events and organisations that I volunteer time to. In my opinion, my positive action looks beyond helping only those who are already suffering, to include preventing it from happening to others. Therefore I truly feel that educating others, and changing mindsets is very much an action. Would you agree?

The debate however had me thinking about ways of trying to bring positivity into the space. I really hate having to have negative conversations where it feels very ‘doom and gloom’ due to the important issues of safety, because I also feel the online environment can have such a positive effect and be used in ways which are beneficial to others. Some of these benefits include the availability of information, creation of supportive community, help and support during disasters, bringing together those with shared interests, bringing education within the reach of everyone, helping isolated communities to feel more connected, assisting those with disabilities who might otherwise not engage, encouraging us to share our hopes, dream and achievements with others as a way of inspiring those around us – the list goes on. We just don’t highlight the wins enough, but we sure amplify the darker side when it happens.

Some people say to me “I don’t want to share what I had for lunch, or know what you did”, “I dont need people to know where I’ve been or what I did”.. and sure maybe you don’t, but if we go back in time, when communication wasn’t so broad, everyone in the village knew what you had for lunch, what you did, where you had been…. so to me, we have just tried to bring some of the village back, because we have all been wandering around our big lonely cities for quite some time. Just as some wanted to escape the village back in the day, we have those who want to escape back to a time when each of us had more interest in the other, because there simply was a lot less to occupy our minds. With so much now filling our heads, a bit of harmless, no-brainer, “I don’t have to analyse this” posting is quite welcome in my world! Ok some things should stay private – I don’t need to know when you shower or go to the loo (or what you look like in either of those situations) – but if you really want to share that, I would probably ask you why, but then limit the feed. After all it’s your wall, not mine and you can share what you like as long as you take responsibility for it. If you eat out somewhere nice, I am interested – I love eating out and I don’t mind the pics of your food. If you post graphic images of particular causes, that is up to you, but be sensitive to the ages of those you transact online with. Respect our youth’s right to grow up without fear in their faces every minute. Just own what you post. Seriously if you don’t like it, don’t judge it, just adjust your settings if it really bugs you. If its illegal or inappropriate, report the page or post – that’s what I do.

What about though, rather than getting up in arms about people posting pics of the cat, or their outfit, that we choose to view our online experiences with the glass half full? Embrace the simple joy and pleasure that someone is getting from sharing their new hairdo, the new garden spade or their boutique beer. Rather than be annoyed, breathe in the simplicity of their joy and happiness. You don’t have to rush out and get a spade, but hey, if you ever need one you now know which friend can help you!

Naturally there are certain pictures which shouldnt be shared – the ones your grandma would blush at – keep them private. However if you do post about your more intimate thoughts or the melt down you had – recognise that you are reaching out to your community, but also recognise that you must take responsibility for that post – and if you don’t get the response you wanted, either take it down, or learn from it. If its too personal, don’t post it – try picking up the phone and talking things over with a close friend. In the end it is your wall. Try and be understanding, don’t knock the guy who posts pictures of his new mag wheels when you have just finished posting 300 pictures of baby eating yoghurt – one is his baby the other is yours!

If you only use your social media for business, then stop and realise that platforms like facebook and blogging itself have grown as social networks and blogging is about sharing opinion, thoughts and events of the day – hundreds and thousands of global diaries being updated every minute. Logically not all content will resonnate with our own values and opinions, but if you let it wash over you, you might just find that you are learning new things. We need to keep the social in social media or we go back to square one, and I think many in the world are over the bombardment of advertising everywhere they go.

This post was inspired because I was seeking interaction on how to bring positives, love and fun into the space, to counteract some of the negativity. I was shocked to find that some people, particularly young people, just don’t know how to give a compliment or praise someone. It’s not, to coin a phrase “wanky” to tell others positive things – it’s just simply nice!

So how can we take simple postive action? Well how about joining up with our new global event? Until the end of June we challenge you to join us and to post a positive comment on someones wall, then share the comment (without the persons name) so that others can see the types of things that people appreciate in others. #LET’SSMILEONLINE is a really simple way to spread a little love. I think our kids would be more resilient and able to cope with the odd nasty comment from a bully when (1) they can recognise that the issue is with the person posting, not them (2) they see positives to counteract the negatives. It’s not rocket science, it’s not even science, it’s just something I would love your support in trying. Let’s all be online superheroes. If you see something negative, just remove it, or let us know if it’s on our event and we will remove it. No need to engage because who wants to waste energy on negativity anyway?

fiona lucas

*comment debate: my term for a lengthy thread on facebook

*illustrations from Futureproof your Kids