Business and Finance

It will do you now good treating kids today as if they didn’t know a thing or two. In fact, if you weigh what you know or what you think you know against what kids know today, you may be put in the shade with your shame. Kids are painfully smart and they learn faster than the average adult. Like little knowledge sponges, kids are able to process, retain and accept more information than their adults.

Why is this? Well, for several reasons but primarily, when you pair the availability of information plus the innocence or lack of bias of a child’s mind, you’ll get a knowledge magnet. Their lack of experience allows them to absorb the world around them at a different level with a sense of clarity that even they may not understand. Kids don’t need the kind of mental babysitting and coercing we may have needed as children because they are surrounded by adults, surrounded by information and are very perceptive to the world they observe and are a part of.

We must however as parents, mentors, teachers and guardians, understand that while children are exposed to adult information, it doesn’t mean that they understand it or comprehend how to apply it in a scalable way. It is important that we monitor, filter and explain the things that our kids are exposed to so that the information is productive to their healthy development.

As far as recreation, the way children play or enjoy themselves has changed over time as well. A lot more cerebral and less physical, kids are spending more time relaxing and enjoying recreational activities that are online and based in electronics and technology than actual outdoor activities. The television generation of kids has also basically come and gone as the TV is now used as a portal for children to play games.

A big part of how children play with each other these days, while electronically based is still finding them networking with each other. This is both an amazing and slightly worrying prospect. While so many things are done online, the internet as a space is not something that children should be left to maneuver on their own. Besides the obvious worries of pornography, violence and other unsavory elements, there is a human element that must be monitored and screened for as well.

Children are creating profiles online on various gaming and social networking sites to keep in touch with each other and to make new friends. These sites and portals are veritably opened around the world and it is very important that adults keep abreast of what goes on online. Reputation management online is an excellent tool not just to monitor and keep our kids safe with their information but it is also a means by which parents can investigate the people with whom their children interact.

While kids may jump into online interactions with a sense of innocence and playful hopefulness, the fact is that there are others online with less than noble intentions. Using the tools and technology provided by online reputation management, you can make sure that who your kids are hanging out with online is who they say they are.

Image: KEEPING KIDS SAFE ONLINE PHOTO

Source: intheknows.blogspot.com

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