This is a sponsored post, thanks for supporting The Mama Maven Blog
Last weekend I hosted an intimate Moms’ Night Out, sponsored by Google for Education. We met at Cipollina Gourmet in Forest Hills, Queens, NY and enjoyed a delicious dinner. The topic of the night was Google for Education’s Be Internet Campaign and how we can teach kids to learn to act responsibly and kindly online, which you may remember I wrote about recently. How To Help Kids Be Kind Online – Google For Education Moms’ Night Out Recap | The Mama Maven Blog
After giving an overview of the program, I explained about my own children’s history of being online and how I had to put the breaks on some of the things my oldest son was doing online…We also talked about how to spread kindness online and how to go from being a bystander to an upstander.
It was actually great to hear the stories from my other mom guests. Turns out I wasn’t alone — what I experienced was common. A lot of us had children who were going online a bit too much (it’s a real struggle) and acting inappropriately. Other moms shared stories about their kids, some older and some younger- which was helpful seeing how other families handling restricting online access or why they didn’t restrict it. Most mothers did mention that their kids wanted to be online almost all the time and they had to set boundaries. There were no wrong answers and we found the advice given was very helpful. One mom had a son that was a year older than my son — a straight A student who loved to game. Hearing how she handled his being online was really interesting to all of us and actually inspiring. Another mother explained how being online had actually really helped her child. But we all agreed on the fact that kids need to know how to act online. That’s something that really wasn’t taught to us and most schools aren’t covering this yet. One mother mentioned that her child was being taught how to act appropriately online, which we all thought was a great start. It’s a new digital age and while we didn’t grow up online, our kids are doing just that.
If you remember, the Five fundamental topics of digital safety and citizenship form the Internet Code of Awesome:
• Share with Care (Be Internet Smart)
• Don’t Fall for Fake (Be Internet Alert)
• Secure Your Secrets (Be Internet Strong)
• It’s Cool to Be Kind (Be Internet Kind)
• When in Doubt, Talk It Out (Be Internet Brave)
We discussed what being a “Bystander” versus and “Upstander”. According to Google for Education’s Curriculum, “behind every username and profile there is a person that is real. They have real feelings and we need to treat everyone the way we want to be treated. When bullying or mean behaviors happen, there are different people included —
- The Target
- The aggressor/bully
- Bystanders
- Upstander
While we can easily figure out the target and the aggressor/bully role, we defined what bystander and upstanders are. There are witnesses to what’s going on, usually called bystanders. There are witnesses to what’s going on who try to positively intervene, often called upstanders. We can also encourage each other to be “upstanders”: people who help the person being hurt when they see something hurtful happening and help turn negative situations into positive ones.”
More on being an upstander
• They find a way to be kind to or support the person being targeted
• They call out the mean behavior in a comment or reply (remember to call out the behavior, not the person) if you feel comfortable with that and think it’s safe to do so
• Deciding not to help the aggressor by spreading the bullying or making it worse by sharing the mean post or comment online
• Getting a bunch of friends to create a “pile-on of kindness” – post lots of kind comments about the person being targeted (but nothing mean about the aggressor, because you’re setting an example, not retaliating)
• Reporting the harassment. Tell someone who can help, like a parent, teacher, or school counselor.
We went through some scenarios (pretending to be in elementary and middle school) and discussed how we would act in those situations. It’s not always easy to be an upstander, but we agreed that it is something that kids may have to work at.
There is a really easy way to put kids on the spreading kindness online track – team them how to be kind online. Also – playing “Kind Kingdom” on Interland is a low-stress way to let kids actually navigate individual situations. All in all, we had a fantastic night, thank you to our sponsor, Google for Education!
How can you start?
Play Interland with your kids and put your kindness skills to the test at g.co/KindKingdom
Learn more about how to Be Internet Awesome at g.co/BeInternetAwesome and tell your kids’ teachers about the online curriculum so they can introduce these activities in the classroom.
Download Curriculum right here: Be Internet Awesome Curriculum
For more info: Go to: g.co/BeInternetAwesome
#BeInternetAwesome #ItsCoolToBeKind
Huge thank you to all the mamas that came out!
Read our first post on this: https://www.themamamaven.com/teaching-kids-to-make-good-decisions-online-and-be-internet-awesome/
when I was in high school I had some people sit there and bully me over the internet and the cops wouldn’t do anything because they only has their screen names, but even now being out of high school I was/am being bullied and even with their name and address I can’t do anything about it. I just love this post so much! thank you for writing it.
I’m sorry to hear that you were bullied and you are still being bullied. I hope you are okay.
This is a great way to help kids. We saw the show 13 Reasons Why and we wondered how that could affect kids today.
I love all of these tips. The internet had become a breeding ground for bullying and it is so scary that my kids will grow up and have to deal with this. Thank you oh for your tips!
As someone who made it to college before the Internet was even a thing, I sometimes find it difficult to help my kids naviagate the online world. This is very helpful!
It’s interesting to see how much the internet has changed over my lifetime and how kids growing up now see and use it vs. how I grew up with it. Thanks for sharing!
This post is so relevant and useful – kids really need to know the value of kindness online.
This looks like an interesting program, I love that you are teaching this to the Moms first.
Thanks for sharing! This is such an important topic to talk about right now.
The 5 fundamentals is just something to remember and you’re good. It is great to read posts like this. You get to learn new lessons and experiences from other moms.
This is a great concept to teach kids how to act online. I think this needs to emphasized more than ever now after hearing many unfortunate stories related to the internet.
This is wonderful! I think people sometimes forget that if they say something on the internet, others will read it! If you get kids to understand this early on in life, they’ll remember it when they get older…
I don’t have kids but I’m afraid if I have any how will I handle internet and stuff as technology is becoming better day by day.
In today’s technology, it is so important to teach our kids to be kind both in cyber world and in real world.
This is a really great way to help the kids! Being able to research things efficiently on Google is very helpful.
I don’t think there’s any topic more important right now than encouraging kindness! There’s so much good information here, and it’s something every parent needs to talk about with their kids. (And there are many adults who could use a lesson in this, as well!)
I struggle with my kids online. Our two oldest weren’t an issue at all but technology was newer then. My middle child gave me huge struggles; the next child is autistic and very seldom an issue. Our youngest child has truly grown up in the age of technology and definitely she is our greatest struggle. I really have to wonder what kind of struggles they will have with their kids…
I like the internet code of awesome and I love the “behind every user name … statement! I hope there are ways for this to get spread to all people on the internet especially children and teens.