Reliance on computers and the Internet is growing at an exponential rate; especially in the classroom. It used to be that students in grade school through college had to fight over time on the computer in a lab where there might be one computer to every twenty students. Now, many school districts around the country are providing personal computers and laptops to each and every student and some colleges make having a laptop a requirement. Even children attending grades kindergarten through sixth grade have computer specific classes embedded in the curriculum in which they are graded along with mathematics and English. For those who home school, kindergarten through the twelfth grade is now being offered online.
There seems to be a running debate amongst parents about whether so much computer and Internet time is healthy for their children. Many parents worry that their children will spend more time playing Internet games and chatting on Facebook then they will concentrating on their school work; while other parents realize the necessity of learning with computers and the Internet to keep with the times of the digital age.
There are certainly legitimate concerns with having young and inexperienced children surfing the Internet from their home or school computers. However, there are also things parents can do to be sure that their children are not abusing them.
- Implement the parental controls on your home computer and your child’s school computer. With parental controls you can limit the access that your child has to certain websites and receive regular reports to the sites that they do visit.
- Limit the time your child spends daily on the computer and the Internet.
- Trust the school system. They are there to help get your child ready for the real world.
As the Internet and use of computers continues to grow, our children must grow with them or they will be left behind.