What are our children doing behind closed doors?

national | consumer issues | opinion/analysis Thursday November 03, 2005 11:42 by Kathy Sinnott

How well supervised are your children on the internet?

One morning my mother was in the basement feeding wet-washed clothes into the ringer when she paused to rest for a moment. With the ringer off she suddenly realised the house was quiet - unusually quiet. She took a careful look around and thoughtfully headed for the stairs. It was equally quiet in the kitchen. She moved more quickly now as she headed upstairs. The bedromms were empty but before climbing to the attic, she noticed the bathroom door was fully shut. Approaching, she thought she heard a noise. Trying the knob she found it locked.

Her knock was met with silence. "Timmy and John are you in the bathroom?" Was that a swallowed giggle, she wondered with growing suspicion. "I know you are there. What are you doing?" There was a little shuffling sound up to the door. "We're not putting peanut butter and jelly on the walls."

My mother had it easy...messy..but easy. She could wash the peanut butter and jelly off the wall. In fact when the work and annoynace were over, she could remember this episode affectionately and could enjoy it for the rest of her life.

What are our children doing behind closed doors? Well any parent whose child has a computer with internet in the bedroom or in any room that is not supervised should make a point of finding out what is going on. A quick review of the research is very thought-provoking and even disturbing. 90% of youths in the EU have access to internet. 90% of American children over four years of age regularly use IT technology like the internet. 40% of children below the age of four years use computers. In the USA, over half of parents with internet have been asked for a specific Christmas present that has been marketed directly to them on the internet.

An EU study suggests that 24% of children between the ages of eight and 17 have accidentally encountered pornography while on the internet. Another study says that one in three children are exposed to one of the 260 million pornographic pages online or one of 470,000 paedophile sites. Bear in mind that pornography is a E20 billion a year industry, that is always looking for new customers to expand its operations. Another study found out that minors are often exposed to ads for online gampbling on non-gambling websites.

Studies show teenagers aged between 12 and 17 are most likely to go online between 3pm and 5pm. These are the hours when they are also most likely to be alone in working households. One in five parents of children aged between 2 and 17 cite the internet as the media influence of greatest concern in raising their children, second only to television.

In the USA 58% of children say thy have accessed an objectionable website intentionally. A study by the Safe American Foundation reported that 91% of teenagers said they unintentionally accessed websites featuring pornographic hate-based or violent material while conducting research for school or just surfing the web.

There is also potential for contact with cults, cyber bullying, cyber blackmail and aggressive marketing. The internet has a wealth of great information and interesting sites but it is also plagued by predators who want something from our children that we parents do not want sacrificed: their money, attention, and far worse, their innocence.

Love of our children and common sense go a long way when we are faced with any challenge to our children. If you do have internet, use passwords, keep the computer in the busiest part of the house. Install family and child-friendly software to filter out dangerous sites.

Children need time to be children. They need to run, swing, kick and tumble. They need to play and develop and this needs an environment of protected innocence.

Common sense also tells us that children need time with us. I suppose the numbers I find the most daunting are thse: During the secondary school years, an average European child will spend 1,400 hours with the TV, radio, internet, game consoles, video games, telephones and mobiles. 850 hours at school. 200 hours in sport or cultural activities and 208 hours talking to their parents.

As parents we have to think about readjusting those figures and in the meantime, when we are with our children, we have to make very minute count.