Sharing with reporters, Dr. Vu Thu Huong - former lecturer of the Faculty of Primary Education of Hanoi National University of Education - gave a view to prevent risks from potential risks caused by social networks that negatively affect adolescents.
According to experts, how can parents monitor online activities without making their children feel violated in their privacy?
- In fact, the first thing all families have to do is teach their children about 3 things: Allow, prohibit, and must.
"Offering" are things that can be done according to your preferences.
"Banning" are absolutely unavailable acts, such as burning down a house, taking things or money from others, beating up friends, assaulting you...
"Must" is something that even if you don't like it, you still need to do, such as studying or following rules.
Many parents do not teach about "must-do", so children often give sentences like and don't like, want and don't want. They think that once they do not want to do it, everyone cannot be allowed to force them to do it. That will make it easy for you to fall into dangers that you yourself do not know.
Those "must" and " prohibit" things, parents should teach their children from a young age, starting with very simple things such as inviting meals, greeting adults, cleaning the house, arranging school supplies, asking parents for permission when making friends outside of class to reduce risks.
To help children broaden their vision, in addition to being at home such as going to the market or supermarket, parents should limit their children's use of the phone and encourage them to follow and discuss news to help children update information, understand the risks and know how to protect themselves.
From recent incidents of children leaving home just because of very small scoldings from parents, according to experts, are there any signs to show that children tend to leave home?
- There is no specific sign that your child will leave, so discipline and communication are the best preventative way.
Adults are prone to sudden fluctuations in hormones, and they can leave home not because of direct conflicts but because emotions flare up late.
To avoid disorders, parents need to clearly define "if - forbid - right". When there are laws, everything is handled according to principles, avoiding repeated errors, prolonged arguments or children taking advantage of their parents' weaknesses. When children see the law as fair and even their parents follow it, the relationship will be comfortable, avoiding feeling unfair.
Parents must also be exemplary in everything, consider their children as adults, discuss frankly and make objective comments, avoid handling their emotions according to their wishes.
What are the benefits and harms of parents installing applications to control and monitor their children's use of phones?
- Many parents think positioning their children is the best way to protect their safety. But in reality, when children want to leave, removing or throwing this device is the easiest thing.
Social media monitoring apps are often ineffective, as many children are more proficient in technology than their parents and can easily unlock these controls. The best way to control it is still to limit and manage network time at home and keep children busy with their passions. The important thing is that parents need to both educate, be friends, and show courage and trust in their children.
When they are teenagers, what psychological changes can often cause them to be away from home?
- In my opinion, puberty is not necessarily a psychological change, but a change in perception. Second, in terms of knowledge, at this age, children learn to understand most of everything around them, so they are more confident. However, the lack of understanding makes children easily delide about their strength.
Another thing is that today's children are surrounded, pampered, and cared for by their parents, so their vision is limited. Meanwhile, social networks - where children often access information from friends of the same age - are more likely to lead to a lack of awareness. Not to mention that you use social networks comfortably, so you are easily approached and lured by bad forces and subjects under many different tricks.
With such a situation, you become the most susceptible to psychological manipulation. Because those people think they are good but in reality they don't know much, think they are strong but in reality they are very weak, think they can handle everything but in reality they don't know what to handle when an unexpected incident happens.
