Child

The second-step parents need to take, in order to attain a comprehen-sive mobile parental control solution, is to educate their child based on the

knowledge they gained in step one of the parent-based framework for mo-bile parental control. Parents must also provide their child with examples of dangers they may face and finally exercise regular parental supervision if possible. Firstly however, parents need to exercise mobile usage and Internet safety education.

5.3.2.1 Provide mobile device usage and Internet safety education The first and second sub-step in the child step of the parent-based frame-work for mobile parental control suggests that a parent educate their child on safe Internet and mobile device usage (as discussed in Chapter 4, Section 4.2.1.2). The education of a child on safe Internet and mobile device usage can be encapsulated into one sub-step. However, due to the exclusivity of some elements in each (As discussed by means of example in Section 5.3.1), they have been separated into two sub-steps in the parent-based framework for mobile parental control. Nevertheless sub-steps one and two, of the child step, require the parent, who has attained the knowledge themself in step one, the parental self-education step, to share that knowledge with their child by means of education. Parents should, by means of education, teach their chil-dren the do’s and don’ts of Internet and mobile device usage. This could assist children in their decision making process when making use of Internet-enabled mobile devices. Another means of assisting a child in their decision making process, when making use of an Internet-enabled mobile device, is making the child aware of possible dangers.

5.3.2.2 Create awareness on possible dangers

The third sub-step, in the child step of the parent-based framework for mobile parental control, is that the parent should make the child aware of possible dangers they may face when making use of an Internet-enabled mo-bile device. The process of making a child aware may, however, be dependent on the child’s physical and mental stage of development. Parents should de-termine what possible dangers exist for which awareness would have the most positive impact on their child, but yet not expose them to elements they may not understand yet. Several possible dangers exist and will be illustrated by use of scenario type examples.

Examples of possible dangers that parents may make their child aware of may include any of the following (but are not limited to this list):

• In some cases a child may have viewed violent content accidently via an Internet-enabled mobile device, and is now experiencing nightmares.

• The child in question may be talking to someone they met over the Internet, via a social networking platform, instant messaging client or e-mail service, whom they thought was a child of their age. In the end it was not the case that this person was a child their age, but rather an adult sending inappropriate content to them.

• The child may have been convinced to meet in person in real life, whom they met over the Internet, via social networking platforms, instant messaging clients or e-mail, for socialisation reasons, but instead the other person ended up asking them to perform inappropriate actions.

• The child may have phoned a phone number to perform an innocent’

prank, but is now at the end of an abusive response by constantly re-ceiving threatening phone calls from the person they attempted to prank call.

The list depicting possible dangers relating to Internet-enabled mobile devices above only represents a few examples of possible dangers. Parents should make their children aware of such dangers, due to its ability to assist them in their decision making process when using their Internet-enabled mo-bile devices for recreational or educational purposes (As discussed in Chap-ter 3, Section 3.2.1). Once a parent has educated their child, based on the knowledge they have gathered from educating themselves, and made their child aware of possible dangers, a parent should provide a level of parental supervision.

5.3.2.3 Exercise parental supervision

The fourth sub-step, in the child step of the parent-based framework for mobile parental control requires the parent to perform a level of parental supervision. Due to the mobility of mobile devices, this step may be an im-possible task for a parent. The sub-step of parental supervision suggests that

parents perform parental super vision when opportunity arises. It is impor-tant to note that parental supervision does not necessarily entail traditional physical inspection of every activity the child performs on the mobile device at a given time. Parental supervision could be seen in either a traditional or a non-traditional sense.

Parental supervision for mobile devices can be exercised in a traditional sense, and in a non-traditional, less formal sense. Performing parental su-pervision in a traditional sense means the parent watches the child’s every action, as they perform certain activities (As discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.2.2 and again in Chapter 3, Section 3.2.1.1) on the mobile device. This could however, intrude on the child’s privacy (As discussed in Chapter 4, Section 4.2.1.1) or even lead to child’s learning to hide online activity from their parent. In such cases, a less traditional means of parental control may be more suitable.

The non-traditional approach to parental supervision of adolescent mo-bile device usage can be exercised by being obtuse and asking related tions. Parental supervision, through obtuseness and asking informing ques-tions about the activities the child performs on their mobile device, may give the parent a form of insight as to the child’s mobile device usage. Through this, parents may gain insight as to what their child is viewing on their Internet-enabled mobile device and how they are responding to it. The non-traditional approach to parental supervision of adolescent mobile device us-age may require the parent to be discreet.

The sub-step of performing parental supervision requires a level of dili-gence and discretion. Parents should perform this step in the most obtuse way possible. Depending on the child’s stage of development, they may or may not respond to it in a positive manner. Some children might even react with dissatisfaction, in the form of aggression. This may be due to their stage of development and their own process of developing an identity (Cole, Cole,

& Lightfoot, 2004). Thus, if that is the case, and the parental supervision sub-step is not suitable, at the child’s specific stage of development, parents should shift their focus to the next step in the parent-based framework for mobile parental control. Guidelines in the form of sub-steps, relating to the child step, have been summarised in Table 5.2.

Reference: Description:

5.3.2.1 Parents must provide their child with safe Internet and mobile device usage education.

5.3.2.2 Parents must make their child aware of possible dan-gers relating to Internet-enabled mobile device usage.

5.3.2.3 Parents must exercise parental supervision, by using a traditional and/or a non-tradition approach.

Table 5.2: Summary of the Child step

The child step of the parent-based framework for mobile parental control made use of several methods of mobile of mobile parental control and were discussed as four prominent sub-steps. The last sub-step in the child step, namely parental supervision, poses a great challenge, and may not be the easiest to achieve. Nevertheless, parents are urged to attempt exercising this step, if their child’s stage of development allows it, as it plays a definite role in the child step of the parent-based framework for mobile parental control.

The next step in the parent-based framework for mobile parental control is that of providing the child with safety in terms of the device.