TeamCushman

Friends, feel free to leave condolences here.

I know this is a long post, but one I feel is the most important that I’ve put up. If you have any teenagers or even pre-teens in the house you know that staying ahead of the tech curve can be like a chess match. I have one teenager, but the younger one is the one that scares me when it comes to the internet. He is very curious when it comes to the internet. While I don’t think he would do anything inadvertently to harm himself, the fact that he even knows how to set up a username and password on sites like Club Penguin sends shivers up and down my spine. This is one of the reasons we all use the same email address. Some families set up separate emails for everyone in the family, I feel that we don’t have anything to hide, so we use the same. This is the way I found that my young hacker signed up for said Club Penguin. It’s not a bad site for kids, but I don’t want it to become training ground for My Space and Bebo (notice I am not linking to these sites!). I’m not being naive, if he can figure out how to set up a username, I’m sure he can figure out how to set up an online email account.

In a recent survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project, shows that on social networking sites, most teenagers are taking steps to protect themselves, which is good news. However, there are a lot of potential risks that parents need to know. Such as: 43% of teens that use social networking sites have been contacted by a stranger. 31% of users have “friends” on their site that they have never met in person. 55% have set up a profile online. Of those, 46% contain some sort of false information about themselves, which can be accessed by anyone online. Think about that for just a second … Get this, 91% of teens use social networking sites as a way to stay in touch with one another … they are not using email! This is how they know what the hot clothes to wear to school, which party to go to, etc … etc … Here are some more disturbing facts in this report:

• Eighty-two percent of teens who have created profiles have included their first names. Seventy-nine percent have included photos of themselves, and 66 percent have included photos of their friends. Sixty-one percent have included the name of their city or town, while 49 percent have included the name of their school.

• Forty percent have included their instant-message screen name. Forty percent have streamed audio to their profile, and 39 percent have linked to their blog.

• Twenty-nine percent have included their e-mail address, and 29 percent have included their last name.

• Twenty-nine percent have included videos, while 2 percent have included their cell phone numbers.

• Six percent of online teens and 11 percent of profiling teens have posted their first and last names on public profiles.

• Three percent of online teens and 5 percent of profiling teens have disclosed their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in public profiles.

That’s why, Parents, this is like a chess game. Your job is to stay a few steps ahead, figure out their moves before they think of them. As the title says … the end game is Checkmate! So, here are a few thoughts, suggestions and links to help you. The easiest thing to do is put your computer in a public area. If your kids, have a computer in their room, make sure it’s pointing outward so anyone can see the monitor. Also, make sure that the history files doesn’t erase after the browser is closed. That way, you can track movements by looking at the history file.

Start using Firefox. Why? well for one thing, it is the safest way to browse. Secondly, with all of the additions, you can customize your browsing experience and add a layer of protection for you and your family. In addition to Firefox, you can use family safe browsers for the kids, specifically those under 12. A few examples are Kidzui or Glubble.

Once you have Firefox set up, here are some extensions you can use for safe browsing:

• ProCon and Greasemonkey are two of my favorite profanity filters. These sites will block any profanity on the site with a “***”. ProCon will even direct the browser to another site of your choice. Very nice!!
• Another add on through Firefox is BlockSite. This add-on allows censorship ability to your browser. If you put a site on the blacklist, it will never come up. As with ProCon, you can also redirect to another site. So, what sites do you block? easy Google “social networking” sites to find out the most popular and add them to the list. That way, even if your teen or pre-teen doesn’t know about it, add it!! they soon will. Remember, you want to stay a few steps ahead of them!!
• Read. There are a few good parent forums that will help us band together. A few are: Blogsafety, Web Aware and Safekids.
• For instant messaging, I suggest IM Safer. Just make sure you download it on all the computers in the household, not just one.
• If you plan to continue to use IE, that’s fine, but use the Content Advisor in your internet options.

Lastly, and this one sounds so obvious, but its needed to be said and that is … talk to your kids about their online activities. This type of education starts at home, don’t leave it to the playground or classroom. If you pay the internet bill, then you set the ground rules for usage.

Happy Fathers day to the all the Dads out there. I’ll leave it at that. I have a problem with Fathers Day. In fact, I have a problem with Mothers Day, Bosses day, Grandparents day, any other day that there is a coerced sense of affection. Not to say that the kids feel as if they are forced to say “I love you”, its just that we don’t need a special day to do so. It’s something we do everyday. Case in point … I’m in Target the other day. They have the Indiana Jones box set on sale. If you haven’t heard, George Lucas is starting to film a 4th Indiana Jones movie, so in anticipation of the new movie, I wanted to pick up the box set. Sorry, can’t happen. The kids already purchased it for me, so I have to wait. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when the kids actually think of Mom and I, but that’s what Christmas is for. In all honesty, Mom did the thinking, the buying, the wrapping, etc … That’s what I mean by “forced”. The kids are just showing up for the credit. I know, because mother’s day wasn’t that long ago and we did the same thing.

I don’t know if its urban legend or not, but I remember someone telling me that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were created by Hallmark just to sell greeting cards. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sounds like something they would do. Look, I have enough ties, dress shirts, etc … the fact that my wife is buying me things and slapping a Father’s Day card on it doesn’t make it any more special then when she spontaneously picks up something for me. I don’t need a special day to show the affection we have for each other. I especially get in trouble for this with my Mom. My mom loves cards. I can send her all the flowers, jewelry or any other present, but it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t get the Mother’s Day Hallmark greeting card. For some reason, she needs to see it in writing. Where I get into trouble is that I don’t send it. Not that I don’t love her, I mean I can call her 364 days in the year and tell her that I appreciate her and love her, but if I don’t say it ON THAT DAY, it’s like all the other days didn’t exist. This can only happen to me.

So come Sunday, we will go out to lunch or dinner (my pick of course), I will unwrap my surprise gift (gee … I wonder what it will be) and read my Fathers day card. The most important moment will be when my wife and kids tell me they love me, Fathers Day or not THAT’s what makes it a special day!

I was talking to Logan while we were eating out the other night. Somehow the subject of stupids things came up. Here’s a list of some stupid things I did as a child. In no particular order …

* Setting my brother on fire. Yes, we were in scouts. Yes, we had a campfire in woods in the back of our house. Often we would build camp fires. So we had this brilliant idea of throwing one of the engines from our pinewood derby into the fire. We were curious, wanted to see what would happen. After the explosion, we learned first hand how to stop , drop and roll!

* Growing up in the 70’s Mom and Dad had this beautiful wood paneling in the house. I’m sure it was expensive. Around this time, my brother and I were involved in karate, kickboxing and martial arts weapons. These weapons include throwing stars … Throwing stars are sharp … very sharp! Combine that with the fact that we were not trained to use them. Bet you could imagine our parent’s face when they walked in and saw that we were testing the sharpness of the stars by throwing them against the wood paneling. I think the left side of my tukas still hurts from the paddle!

* Almost burning down the house. Yes, I learned the hard way that matches and plaid polyester bed spreads don’t mix. I was stupid enough to be playing with matches one night (see a theme here!) and ended up getting our bed spreads caught on fire. Luckily, my dad and mom were able to put it out. My brother was sleeping in my parent’s bed at the time and wouldn’t you know it, I blamed him. What an idiot.

* Sneaking out of the house. I did this on a number of occassions, but this time I took the ol 1980 Chevy Impala station wagon out with said parents knowing. What could go wrong? No harm. I was just meeting friends at a local park, hanging out, no problem right? Not until some jerk started firing a shotgun at the lights. Now we have a problem. Cops came, paddy wagons came. Next thing I know I’m at juvy hall on a school night. Now picture this … its 2 or 3 in the morning and the phone rings … “Mrs. Cushman, we have your son down at juvenille detention.” And yes, I did go to school the next day!

* I struggled with putting this one in, but in the end, it fits. It is said that a cat always lands on all fours. As a young kid, I tested this theory. However, rather than dropping them, I threw them in the air. We had a cat that used to have a lot of kittens, tons of them. One day, I … through the kittens in the air and they landed in the gutters of our house. I guess I found it amusing at the sight of four of the kitten’s legs spread out like a helicopter and landing in the gutter. I don’t remember how many there were, nor do I remember if the theory was correct. I just remember going on to find something else to do. I didn’t think it was funny seeing dad going up the ladder to get them down at the time. Disclaimer - no kittens were hurt during this episode! I think the right side of my tukas still hurts from the paddle.

The only reason I post these and talk about them - as I told my kids - is that there is no stupid idea that you can think of that I haven’t thought of before. So don’t try it! Don’t even think about it!!