Tips to Learn the Chinese Language -kids-child

Have you been looking for a way to learn the Chinese language as fast as possible? If so, we suggest that you follow the tips given below.

Chinese is Easy to Learn


According to most people, to learn Chinese in shanghai is hard as this language is the most difficult one in the world. This is partially true. As a matter of fact, the writing system of this language is non-alphabetic consisting of tons of pictographs known as "characters". You have to study and internalize them through constant reading and rote memorization.

The thing is that the language has a very easy grammar to learn. The sentence structure is similar to that of the English language. The verbs have only one form with zero conjugations. Aside from this, Chinese course in shanghai has no gender and no plural forms of nouns. All these things make this language easy to learn.

Learn Mandarin

If you have been trying to learn Chinese, you may want to go for Mandarin. This is the most common dialect of Northern China. Aside from this, this is the official language of education, politics and the media in Taiwan and China. Moreover, this is on the list of top languages spoken in Singapore. You can also learn mandarin in shanghai.

In Mainland China, Mandarin means the "common language". Outside of Mainland, Mandarin is considered the national language. Mandarinto Chinese students is the easiest of the dialects to learn.

Speak first

Since the written Chinese is hard, it's a good idea that you focus on practice speaking the language first. Once you have done enough practice, your next step is to improve your writing skills, especially if this is your study or business requirement. While it's a challenge to speak the language, you can master it at Chinese language school in shanghai quickly.

As a matter of fact, the majority of Chinese language apps teach both written and spoken Chinese. So, it's up to you to choose between the written or spoken Chinese.

Learn "simplified" characters

Nowadays, there are two main writing systems in China: "complicated" characters and "simplified characters". Now, the traditional characters evolve from the classic Chinese pictographs. They were used throughout the history of China and to study mandarin in shanghai. As a matter of fact, they have still been used.

Around 100 years ago, the government of China started promulgating an alternative system of writing known as "simplified" characters in order to add to the written literacy in the country. On the other hand, the traditional characters are popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Be Serious

Unlike most of the western languages, learning the Chinese language requires that you have a commitment and perseverance. The reason is that the language doesn't have linguistic roots in the English language.

So, you should stick to these tips if you want to learn mandarin shanghai and improve your Chinese. With these tips, you can learn to speak and write the language in a short period of time.

The major obstacles that the interested individual will face when come to learning Chinese language are as below:-

• Difficulty in writing and recognize the characters which forming the language • The true meaning of each Character • Difficulty in finding the Chinese characters • Difficulty in pronouncing the characters precisely

How to choose a good nursery for your child

As a parent, you know that ensuring the wellbeing of your child is your most important mission on earth that you must approach with dedication and seriousness. Moreover, it surely is heartbreaking to discover that something bad happened to your bundle of joy because you did not give enough time and attention when making an important decision concerning his development. Thus, you cannot treat the process of choosing a good nursery for your child with ease. Instead, you have to explore various options and gather necessary information regarding each facility in order to assess the benefits, drawbacks and ultimately, make a comparison. This will help you find the most suitable nursery that will satisfy your child’s needs, encourage his individuality and ensure his happiness. Think about it as the beginning of your infant’s journey because time passes so quickly and soon you will find yourself in the position of opting for Zug kindergarten.

First, you should make a list containing several nurseries along with their opening hours, activities and cost. Then you have to visit personally these facilities and ask questions regarding their services. Furthermore, gather essential details regarding the staff’s qualifications and experience, the number of children present in the facility and their daily routine, policies on discipline and management of inappropriate behavior, meals and children equipment, among others. During the visits, you must keep in mind your child needs and determine if he will feel safe and happy in the respective environment. A good Zug nursery provides an outside area for activities, ensures relaxed and fun mealtimes, and offers many opportunities for children to develop by learning new things every day. These are main aspects that you have to take into consideration when analyzing the space and atmosphere inside the institution.


Secondly, all nurseries must comply with health and safety regulations by ensuring a safe environment not only for the children, but also for the staff and visiting parents. Ask about measures taken with the purpose to minimize potential risks that could threaten a child’ safety and examine the rooms for extinguishers and fire exits. Although it may sound exaggerating, you can never foresee a hazard so it is better to be precautious that lament later. The play equipment must be new and appropriate for your child’s age because broken pieces could represent a danger. Another high priority should be security and no, we are not mistaken a nursery for a prison. Imagine what would happen if your infant could easily leave the building without anyone noticing it or if a stranger could enter without a solid reason.

Apart from security, cleanliness is also important, which means that you have to examine closely the floors, the walls and the kitchen area. The building should benefit from proper ventilation, heating and lighting. Children should not have access to every part of the facility, especially in those areas that could threaten their life. The staff must show an obvious passion for working with kids as well as paying attention to their needs and interests. Moreover, they must be able to manage difficult situations with calm and positivity.

If you want to know more about Zug kindergarten or Zug nursery, please click on these links!

Internet Rules For Kids

Raising a child in a digital world can be a daunting task. The Internet is ubiquitous in children's lives and as a parent, you need to set limits and guidelines on what your kids are doing online. Different age groups require different rules. As your child grows older he or she will require more personal freedom online, and it is important that they are prepared for this from responsibility and confidence that has been instilled in them from a young age. Here is a general age-appropriate guideline that you can follow to teach Internet responsibility to your kids.

0-7:

In this age category kids are usually not familiar with or using instant messaging, social networking, or participating in chat rooms. However, they are still probably online at times, therefore safety measures still must be taken. As a parent, talk to fellow parents and teachers to see what kind of safe-sites there are for kids. As well, make use of directories for kids. Use kid search engines such as 'yahoo kids' or 'ask for kids.' Here are some examples of relevant sites:

http://www.wiredsafety.org - Internet safety and help group

Awesome Library - 14,000 carefully reviewed resources

Berit's Best Sites - Directory of kids' web sites maintained by Berit Erickson

Britannica - Websites, magazines, books and the Encyclopedia Britannica

Dibdabdoo - Metasearch DMOZ - Yahooligans - Kids Click

INFOMINE - Scholarly Internet resources in K-12

KidsWeb - Mid-Continent Public Library kid's directory

SuperKids SuperSearch - Kid friendly search site

http://www.kidsclick.org - Kid friendly search engine

It is also advised to invest in a parental control blocker. This takes the worry out of not knowing whether or not your kids are visiting unpleasant websites, and reduces the risk of them stumbling onto bad sites.

When your kids are at this age it is appropriate for you to know all of their usernames and passwords. Make sure that your children know this, and discuss what sites they like to go to. Do not allow your kids to post any profiles or personal information at this age, and limit their online activity to around an hour per day.

8-10:

As kids reach this stage in life, cell phones and instant messaging are starting to enter the picture, so the proper precautions must be taken. Kids also may start lying about their age in order to gain access to certain sites and social networks, such as MySpace.com, Facebook.com, etc.

This is also the age where bullying can become prevalent in forums and chat rooms. However, kids may be reluctant to tell their parents because they are not supposed to be on these sites anyways.

Peer-To-Peer (P2P) file-sharing can become a problem at this age when kids start playing games and sharing Stories online. This can lead to a computer being inundated with spyware and adware.

What should parents do?

First of all if you are not using a parental control filtering device you should get one, and strengthen the filter to your liking. You should also be pre-approving your kids' IM contact list to make sure there aren't any unfamiliar names on it. Make sure you are using anti-spyware, antivirus and pop-up blockers to combat any unwanted, annoyances that may try to attach to your hard drive. You should still be trying to keep your kids on child-safe search engines at this point. Teach them not to respond to strangers online and to notify you immediately if they encounter any. Stick to limiting online activity to about an hour or so a day for this age group.

10-12:

At this stage, interactive technologies such as instant messaging, email and cell phones are very much a part of most kids' life. Kids are growing socially and are looking to expand their personal network through programs such as Myspace and Facebook.

Parents should further tighten the parental controls filter for this age. Keep an open-dialogue with your kids and make sure that you are still educating them on Internet safety. As well, parents should be looking for signs of cyber-bullying at this age.

Be sure to carefully observe any profiles, screen names and websites that your kids are posting online. Make sure they are aware that they are not allowed to share photos, blogs or webcams without your permission.

It is still a good idea to try to learn your kids' passwords at this age. However, they will begin to resist at this age, so it will most likely end up being quite the communications challenge. However, you should definitely still be pre-approving your kids' contact lists at this point.

Search your computer regularly for any taboo images, pirated music or media files. You can also use Google Alerts to automatically notify you in any online activity attached to your child's screen name turns up in a Google search. This can be very effective.

Limit your kids' time to 1.5-2 hours online.

13-15:

Kids are at the highest risk of online and offline encounters with strangers at this age. They are becoming very social and curious and are trying new things online. This is also the age where cyber-bullying and sexual harassment are at their peak. Kids are often talking in forums and social networks and are subject to abuse from other people online. From fear of peer-pressure and social ostracization, many kids are unlikely to tell adults if they are being bullied or sexually harassed online.

Parents should still be pre-approving social networking and dating sites at this time. Try to keep your kids off of P2P or pirated software sites. Instead, offer them services such as iTunes or other legitimate media sites.

It is important to teach your kids to guard their passwords and not divulge any personal information that can come back to haunt them. Make sure that your computer is in a central location in order to monitor your kids' online activity. Limit your kids' time online to 2 hours at this age.

16 and up:

This is the age when kids begin to leave the cyber-nest. They will do what they want at this age so it is important that you have already prepared and educated them for anything that they may encounter online. It is time to trust them to do the right thing.

However, you can still give friendly reminders about being responsible online. Enforce conversation about the risks of sharing personal information online and teach them to Google themselves regularly to monitor anything that might be said about them. Make sure they are using antivirus and security firewalls. As well, advise them to check regularly for adware and spyware on their PCs. Also, strongly suggest that your kids refrain from using a webcam. Remind them that once something has been posted online, it is for good, and they will have no control over what will happen to it.

It is important for your kids to know that even though they are now independent, they should still feel comfortable coming to you if anything goes wrong while they are surfing the net.


Ryan Hagen

http://www.paretologic.com

[http://www.safesurfer.org]

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Why is My Child Stealing and What Can I Do? Advice For Parents on Kids, Stealing and Shoplifting

"My fourteen year old daughter was arrested for shoplifting make-up this week," said Marie, a working mother of two girls. "Is this just normal teen behavior, or is it something more serious? She's grounded for a month and I've taken away her iPod and computer privileges, but to tell the truth, I'm still in shock. I'm furious and I don't even know how to talk to her about what she did."

Many parents have asked me over the years, "Is shoplifting a candy bar or cosmetics or clothes the same as stealing?" The truth is, stealing is stealing. It's criminal, antisocial and worst of all, it corrodes a child's development, character and integrity through the use of justifications and excuses. However, shoplifting candy bars from a store and stealing with aggression are two very different acts.

Stealing is wrong, and the best way to understand it is to examine your child's thinking. Kids who steal often feel entitled to what they're stealing, even though they or their parents can't afford it. There is a fierce sense of competitiveness amongst teens and pre-teens these days regarding having the cool stuff, wearing the hip clothes, and sporting hot make-up or accessories. Many kids will resort to stealing as a response to this phenomenon. Sometimes kids even steal for the sense of excitement it gives them, or do it under peer pressure. A big part of the problem is that our society's message is completely absent of a strongly objective morality. In most movies and songs today, the bad guys do good things and the good guys do bad things, and everybody looks the same. So kids justify what they're doing. It's not surprising when kids develop these ambivalent feelings about integrity, character and the difference between right and wrong.

The "Five Finger Discount"-What's Behind a Child's Thinking When He Shoplifts?

A child's thinking behind this type of behavior is that "No one will get hurt and the store has a lot of money." They rationalize that they need to have this stuff in order to be accepted. They might say, "My parents won't allow me to buy clothing or makeup like this, so I have to steal it." But remember this: It's our job as parents, teachers and therapists to strongly defend the concept that stealing is wrong. Tell your children this: "Stealing is wrong for two reasons: It's illegal and puts you at risk of being arrested and prosecuted. It's also hurtful because when you take something that doesn't belong to you, somewhere, someone down the line is being hurt." Make it real to your child by explaining that if they shoplift cosmetics or video games, the company adjusts its price upwards to insulate itself, and all the rest of us pay a little more for it because of it.

If your child is caught stealing, in all cases, there needs to be meaningful consequences for the behavior. To you as a parent, the most important aspect of your child's decision to steal is the way of thinking that preceded the stealing. She should pay whatever the consequences are for stealing, and also write an essay on how she justified it. Ask her, "What were you thinking before you stole this?" Remember this: It is in the examination of the justifications and excuses where the true learning will take place.

Certainly consequences like making her take the stolen item back to the store, apologizing and making financial amends are all very good parts of the equation. That kind of accountability can be very productive in deterring future stealing, if accompanied by an examination of the faulty thinking which drove them to do it. You also might give them the consequence of, "You can't go to the mall for two weeks. Two weeks of no stealing." If parents ask me, "How do I know?" I say "Don't worry about it. They need to get another chance. You're not there to be a cop." Always give them the chance to earn your trust back.

Stealing with Aggression: A Whole Different Mindset

"Aggression" means a "threat of harm or violence or the use of harm or violence." Some kids have gotten to a level of stealing where they are willing to physically assault someone else to take what they want. When dealing with stealing with aggression, the focus has to be on very strong consequences to deter future behavior, as well as a very focused examination of the thoughts, not the feelings, the thoughts which underlie this type of behavior. When people steal with aggression, they're clearly saying, "I want that bad enough that I'll hurt you if you don't give it to me," which is very different than a shoplifter who says, "This won't hurt the company, they have a lot of money." It's a very different mindset and has to be addressed with vigor.

Let me be clear: Stealing with aggression is hardcore antisocial behavior. When you deal with individuals who exhibit criminal behavior, you'll often find that one-on-one, they can be very charming, pleasant, and intelligent. Many criminals have advanced social manipulative skills. The difference between a criminal and a non-criminal is that the criminal is willing to use violence and aggression to get what he wants, while the non-criminal has very strong boundaries in those areas. So when children are willing to use violence and aggression to get their way, it can be a key indicator that they are quite far down the wrong path. Of course there are always isolated incidents where kids will threaten other kids to get their way. Adolescent bravado can sometimes lead to threats. The astute adult has to ferret out which is which. But make no mistake, if your child is using threats of violence and aggression to steal, he has to be dealt with very sternly. Again, it is very difficult to counteract the media forces in our society which constantly advocate aggression and violence as legitimate means to solve problems. Our media promotes the idea that if you want or need something bad enough and you have a good excuse-making system in place, you can justify anything. And you can use aggression and violence to achieve your end.

So here's the message kids are getting: "If you can justify it, then it's OK to do it." And we all know that kids can justify anything. So society has to react very strongly to aggression and threats involving stealing or anything else. I mean, look around you. Look at all the violence and aggression, senseless killing. Now think about this: in the minds of the kids who are committing that violence they believe it's the OK thing to do. If you look beneath the violence, to the thinking patterns, it's very scary. That's why you see situations like Columbine and Virginia Tech, where kids commit horrible violence on other kids and justify it because they perceive themselves as victims. Stealing is wrong and hurtful. But stealing with aggression and violence is much more problematic and needs to be dealt with aggressively.

If Your Child is Stealing within the Family, Everyone is Paying the Price

It's common to hear that kids steal from their family members. Younger kids after all don't have the level of moral development that leads to them understanding that this type of stealing is wrong and hurtful. This has to be taught with patience and firmness. Stealing within the family should have the same consequences as stealing from a store, whether it's from a sibling or a parent. Labeling, yelling and name-calling does not change the behavior. Discussions about the rights of others and respect for other's property, followed by a consequence the child must carry out, are the preferred ways of dealing with theft in the family.

For young children, a consequence might be that they go to their room with the door open for 15 minutes, at the end of which time you come in and talk with them about stealing. Focus on the child realizing he was wrong, instead of just saying he is sorry. As kids get older, other consequences come into play, like paying rent for the stolen property, paying back the stolen money, and loss of social privileges. Tell them you're taking away their privileges because you're not sure they can be trusted outside of the house. Don't forget that if someone is unsafe or untrustworthy in the house, there should be real concern about what kind of trouble they might get into outside of the house where there is even less structure.

Volume and frequency of the stealing are also important to address. If a pre-adolescent or adolescent steals a large amount of money, which is measured compared to what the family has, the police should be called and you should be starting the legal process. This is designed to hold that child legally responsible, not only family-responsible. The assumption here is that you've tried all you can within the family and it's not working, and that now the police have to get involved. Stealing is a crime. These acts should be looked at as criminal acts more than as mental health problems. While mental health issues may be involved, adults who have mental health problems are punished for stealing just like adults without mental health problems. Prisons and correctional institutions are full of people with mental health problems who also stole. They're not in jail for mental health problems, they're in jail for stealing.

If there's a high frequency of theft, or stealing for no apparent reason or the hoarding of food, that can indicate deeper psychological forces at play. These kids need to be assessed to see if there's a therapeutic response to their behavior. But make no bones about it, they also need to be held accountable in the home as well as outside of the home for their antisocial behavior.

Although stealing may be a symptom of a larger problem, it is still stealing. The lesson about not stealing has to be reinforced and the child has to be held accountable. We can't make excuses about antisocial and harmful behavior even when it occurs in the home. Remember, you're trying to produce a person who can function safely and productively in adult society. Excusing stealing will not produce that person. Sometimes parents minimize this behavior and it comes back to hurt them later on.

When Your Trust is Betrayed: How to let Your Child Earn it Back

The sense of betrayal that parents feel after their child has stolen from them is very real and should be addressed openly. If it's a younger child, certainly the emotion should be screened out of it, and your child should be taught about trust. The way you'd explain trust to a younger child is by saying, "Stealing is hurtful and if somebody trusts you, it's important not to hurt them." Explain that trust is really a word we use for depending upon other people to do certain things or to not do certain things. The stronger that our belief is that they won't hurt us, the deeper the sense of violation is. As kids get older and become teens, I think that their loyalties and allegiances are torn between the values of their peer group and the values of their family. Very often there's a contradiction between the two. This contradiction needs to be tolerated by parents to a certain degree because the teenager's developmental role is to become an individual. And one of the ways that teens do that is by pushing their parents away and by rebelling against family norms and values. A certain amount of rebelliousness should be tolerated. Nonetheless, a teenager stealing from parents is not an act of rebelliousness. It's a violation of trust and it's the commission of a petty crime in an arena where the teen doesn't feel there will be severe consequences.

If there are several acts of stealing, they should be dealt with sternly in the family, using the behavioral concepts that I mentioned earlier. If there is major stealing of money and other valuables, the parents should consider involving the police and pressing charges. Although this seems harsh, the principles behind it are easy to understand. If a teen is stealing from you because he perceives you as being weak and if family consequences aren't helping with that, the family needs to seek outside help in order to strengthen itself. Secondly, and this is very important, if kids get away with stealing valuables from home, they're going to develop a value system which allows for stealing any time the person can justify it. When I have gone to youth detention centers to talk to the teens I was working with about the crimes that got them there, they invariably had a justification for it. That type of justification, or what we call an "alibi system," is developed and reinforced at home. In short, teens develop a way of thinking to justify their teenage behavior. They develop an alibi for everything. Once that alibi system becomes criminalized, you'll see an increase in the amount of antisocial behavior such as stealing, drug use, and sometimes aggression. Parents who insulate kids from the consequences of their behavior are only extending, supporting and reinforcing the bad judgments that lead to those behaviors.

The way trust is won back: for younger kids, they should be told what to do in order for the family to feel like they trust them again. "Don't take your brother's things so I can trust you to be upstairs alone. If you steal something from your older brother, you can't go upstairs unsupervised." Make the child uncomfortable. Consequences make them uncomfortable. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink-but you can make them thirsty. Consequences are designed to make the child thirsty.

In addition, positive statements about trust should be made frequently with younger kids. "When you handle it that way, I know I can trust you." Model the values you want your younger kids to have and identify them. Make statements like, "It's good when you tell me the truth. I know I can trust you downstairs with the TV. I know I can trust you to go into my bedroom." The more we say statements like that, that you see what your child is doing, or you hear what they're saying, the more real it makes them feel. With older kids who steal, it's important to say, "You've lost my trust, and therefore you can't go upstairs alone. I don't think I'm going to be able to trust you around money again. So I'm going to close my bedroom door and you can't go in anymore." There are parents who put locks on their doors, and I think kids should pay for those locks. But always give them a means to earn that trust back, either in that conversation or a subsequent one.

Is Your Child Stealing Chronically?

If a kid steals chronically, earning a parent's trust back is the least of his problems. Because he's already developing an alibi system that says it's OK to hurt the people you love. There are plenty of parents who don't trust their kids around their money and valuables. In today's society, parents are second class citizens and there's almost a societal expectation that their kids will abuse them and that they should take it, and that's just crazy. That expectation is expressed in justifications like, "All kids steal, all kids lie, kids sometimes lose their temper." But certainly all kids don't lie or steal to the same degree, nor do all kids verbally abuse their parents and break things in the home. And when they do, they need to be held strictly accountable.

Right and Wrong: There is a Difference

I truly empathize with what parents are up against these days. The concept of right and wrong has taken a real beating in our recent history. It's been replaced by the concepts of "consumerism" and "possessiveness." Therefore, when you tell kids it is wrong to steal, they have limited formal moral and ethical training to use as a reference point, and whatever moral and ethical training they have is easily drowned out by the media, which screams at them constantly. And there's too much excuse-making for kids' behavior. Adults say "It's only a stage he's going through." Or he has ADD. Or his father is an alcoholic. And they keep making those excuses until the kid is in serious trouble. Things like developmental stages or mental health diagnoses or family influences have to be dealt with as separate issues from the stealing or aggression. Do these issues need to be addressed? Of course they do. Are they significant? Absolutely. Should they be allowed to justify stealing or aggression? Never. No matter what parents you have, no matter what mental health diagnosis, no matter what stage you're in, it's wrong to steal because it hurts others.

That has to be black and white to everybody.


For three decades, behavioral therapist James Lehman, MSW, has worked with troubled teens and children with behavior problems. He has developed a practical, real-life approach to managing children and adolescents that teaches them how to solve social problems without hiding behind a facade of defiant, disrespectful, or obnoxious behavior. He has taught his approach to parents, teachers, state agencies and treatment centers in private practice and now through The Total Transformation® Program.

The Total Transformation Program® is a comprehensive step-by-step, multi-media, child behavior modification program for child behavior problems like oppositional defiant disorder and children anger issues.

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Don't Spoil Your Kid - Teach Your Kid Sports

Any parent wants the best for their kids, so some parents spoil their kids by giving them what they want but that is not a good idea. Spoiling your kids could mean laziness and they will not approve to any work or task you give them when they grow up. To prevent your child from spoiling his or her life away, let him or her join sports. There are reasons why you should let your kid join sports at a young age. The reason is when your kids are grown up, they know what to do and what is good for them. From the sport you have given them, they can be famous if your kid excels in the sport every time your kid enters a competition. That is just one reason why you should make your child join sports.

When kids are bored they usually watch television, by the time you get home from work, your kid still hasn't finished watching cartoons. Another situation is about computer games. Kids who love computer games end up locked in their rooms and only goes out when they have to go to the bathroom or if they want to get something off the fridge. This is the time when you the parent should come in. Have a chat with your child. Encourage your kid to make changes and stop watching TV to fill the kid's boredom. Talk to your kid about sports and recreation. When you are talking with your kid, make sure that you back up what you talk about with him or her. When you have time, teach him or her to play sports. Teach your child the sport you once played, if you have one.

On weekends instead of watching TV, parents should have time with their kids. The parents should also stop watching TV too much and rather talk about the plans for the weekends with your kid. Plan what to do on weekends. This would encourage the kid to be ready and be prepared when your kid goes out and play on weekends with his or her parent. Parents must be active when they play with their children. Since a working parent only has the weekend's time off, that time will be good enough to spend with your child. You can spend your time with your child when you play the sports that your kid doesn't know about. So show off some of your skills to your kid and teach him how you do it. Just don't expect the kid to be perfect at first.

As a parent, you should set a good example to show to your kids. Kids love to mimic what their parents do. So instead of sitting in front of the TV, go out and do something recreational. When a kid sees what the parent does, the kid can copy what the parents do. When your kid asks what you are doing, you better answer him positively and make interesting conversations to let your kid know about sports. When your kid likes the sport you do, your kid will ask you to teach him or her.


Sandra Chaser has helped a lot of people over the years with everything from Kids Helmets, to Kids Bike Helmet, and other baby, kids and teens topics.

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Kids Safety On The Internet - The Technology Blame Game?

I cannot blame technology, the Internet included, for your kids safety (or unsafety) on the Internet. I have spent more than twenty-five years in the technical field, and it would be ironic and shameful if I was promoting something that was putting my kid in danger. However, something is to blame, and I tend to come back to the same question "Are your kids in more danger today compared to when you were their age?"

I truly believe they are in more danger now than when we were kids. Let's look at three different scenarios to give some context to my opinions: bullying, sexual predators, and violent content.

Stop The Cyber Bully?

Think about when you were roughly the same age as your child. What were you were doing in the school yard? If you were unlucky, then you as a kid may have been bullied by other kids at the school. Maybe you even witnessed a bullying incident. Bullying in your kid-days typically remained in the school yard. When it was time to go home, the mental effects of bullying possibly trailed home with you, and when you returned to school the next day, the bullying may have picked up from where it left off - verbal and possibly physical abuse. The key thing is that you did not drag the bullying home with you. It stayed at school. Today, a kid usually does not have the luxury of leaving the bullying on the school grounds. The bullying can follow them wherever they go, called cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is Internet-based, and you did not have the Internet as a kid. The closest resemblance to something like the Internet was probably a telephone or a radio -- and I'm really stretching my imagination. If someone wanted to spread the bullying word about you, the best they could probably do is tell their school friends or maybe spread the bully word by telephone -- a very slow and laborious way of spreading the bully word.

Today, however, the bullying word spreads exceptionally fast, and its difficult to stop cyber bullying. I have witnessed live bullying episodes on the Internet, namely Twitter and Facebook. Not only does the bullying word spread fast, but those who instigate it can do so anonymously. During your kid-days bullying was usually face-to-face, so you knew exactly who was behind the events. Today the probability of the bully remaining anonymous is fairly high. They just hide behind fake profiles and userid's, then launch "operation clandestine bully spread".

Predators On The Internet?

Then there is the predator world. As a kid did you ever have a fear of being stalked by a predator? Did you ever think they (the stalker) was going to take you away and do mean? Did your parents think behind every dark corner lurked a predator? I know for a fact that I never feared such a thing, and neither did my parents. If my parents had concerns it definitely did not overwhelm or rule their lives. Once in awhile they may have reminded me "Not to talk with strangers". In fact, I felt extremely safe -- walked to school & my friends by myself and played outside after sunset. Even though there may have been real dangers I never felt threatened. I felt totally safe!

Today, as a parent I am extremely conscious of the Internet Predator. I have already educated my kid about chat rooms and how not to communicate with strangers. I'm definitely not an old-fashioned parent, but my instincts tell me to keep myself alert and watch for any tell-tale signs that my kid is in predator danger.

It's obvious that Predators on the Internet are a real concerns amongst many parents. I am constantly witnessing parents telling their kids not to friend anyone on Facebook that they do not know. The hip parents tell their kids "NOT TO LMIRL" to anyone that they have not previously met in real life (aka. Don't talk with strangers). In the Twitter world. many Twitter Teens already have a huge amount of followers, and would venture to guess that they do not even know who most of them are. I've seen kids with thousands of followers, and even if they had a fraction of the amount of followers that they have, there is no practical way that they know every one of them. So basically, if your kids are on Twitter they are probably talking to strangers - I'm sure many more strangers than you spoke to as a kid.

The Meaning Of Violence?

When you start comparing the violence that you as kid were exposed to compared to today's kids, there is a dramatic difference. When I was the same age as my son is now the extent of the violent content I was exposed to was negligible compared to that of today's kids.

I was born in South Africa, and as a form of entertainment, my parents rented 16mm reel-to-reel movies on the weekend. The 16mm reel-to-reel movies were South Africa's equivalent of North America's, once popular, Beta or VHS. The 1967 Bonnie & Clyde was the most violent movie that my parents ever rented, which we (the kids) were sent to our bedrooms to play while they (our parents) watched movie. Every once in awhile we used to sneak a peek and get our dose of blood & gore. Bonnie & Clyde, by the way, is rated R by the MPAA, and Age 14 by Common Sense Media.

Fast forward to 2011 -- I can list at least a dozen Internet or console based games that are extremely violent in nature, and know of kids that are under 10 years old who play these games. I won't go into details about the games, but they are rated "Not for Kids" and "5 circle violence" by Common Sense Media. Today's violent content does not fit into the Bonnie & Clyde genre - what was rated R in 1967 seems to be rated OK for today's teens. It is relative though, in 1967, as a kid, I was trying to watch content that was "not for kids" and in 2011 kids are still immersed in content that is "not for kids", albeit the content is more graphically violent -- eg. "Call of Duty".

About The Internet For Kids

So when you start comparing kids to now and when you where a kid, it should be clear that today's kids are more susceptible to dangers than yesterdays kids. Your initial inkling, after taking into account bullying, sexual predators, and violent content is to probably blame the Internet. Isn't the Internet the big difference between now and then? It may seem so, but I do not believe the Internet and technology is to blame.

The Internet is just an efficient mechanism to get messages, information, and content from one place to another, and has not changed the underlying cause or motivation of human behavior. There are many documented stories that show bullying, violence and other related incidences and are part of our history. Internet or no Internet there will still be bullying, sexual predators, and violent content. The Internet has just made access to content, messages and information much easier and more pervasive than it's ever been.

I believe that we can not totally eliminate bullying, the sexual predator, and violent content because in order to do so we will need to dig really deep and start altering almost everything about society -- not a realistic endeavor. We need to live with the consequences of our progression, and keep on managing and tame the elements that have put our kids in potential danger. Even though I do not blame technology and the Internet as the source of our kids safety (or unsafety), I fully recognize that the Internet has given bullying, predators, and violent content an easy, and inexpensive way to access and abuse the unassuming kid.

The bullying message can be carried more quickly, efficiently and anonymously than a face-to-face conversation; Predators can hide behind smoke screens and pretend to be younger than they say; Content, violent or tame, can be distributed through the Internet more easily than renting a game or a video. The Internet is not going away, and is evolving quickly.

We still need to do what we do best - that is guide our kids safely until they are able to take over that responsibility themselves. It is necessary and important that we continue learning how to tame the 'Internet beast'. We will get there, but for now our persistence to guide our kids safely through the Internet must prevail.

Gary Hyman is an authority on Kids Safety On The Internet [http://kidinternetsafetyguru.com/blog/]. He helps parents guide their kids safely on the Internet. For tips, advice, and tools to protect your kids on the Internet please visit Kids Safety On The Internet [http://kidinternetsafetyguru.com/]. EZ

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Gary_Hyman/890766

Keep Your Children Safe! ID, Online, Toys, People - Many Dangers

Your kids - please keep them safe. Teach them, register them (with a reputable company), set up location services, and love them unconditionally.

Teach your kids to be wary of strangers. Teach them to ignore strangers' requests for their help, or offers of candy, and such. There are so many ways kids can be lured away - to help find a lost dog, a lost kid, or even his parents. Candy and treats should never entice your kids - they could be spiked, and it's a way to get the child close enough to grab. Even people she knows could turn out to be dangerous (it keeps happening - a trusted figure is able to lure a child away). Keep them off social media until they are mature enough to handle it. There are many trolls who are looking for child targets. On that note, don't post photos of your kids on social media because bad people are looking for those photos (and sometimes the photos are downloaded and used in other awful ways - given to human traffickers, used in propaganda, or other uses).

Take photos and fingerprints of your children. List all special or significant identifiers - moles, freckles, scars, piercings, teeth features, etc. A kit is available to gather the information, then kept in a registry, in case it's ever needed (hopefully never).

Keep track of their locations, by setting up a parental GPS on their phone, by using an Amber GPS tool, and by teaching them to be honest with you on where they go (don't punish them for being honest - let them know it's better for you to know where they are, in case you need a starting point if you need to find them).

Let them know it's all because you love them - you don't want to lose them, or anything to happen to them. This is a different world we live in, and it's full of dangers we never imagined could happen. Certainly, more and new dangers will continue to show up, sadly, but as technology advances, so do the workings of evil minds. We need to keep diligent and try to keep ahead of the dangers coming.

Be vigilant about your kids' toys. They shouldn't have parts that fall off, have parts that can be swallowed, weren't made with toxic ingredients (be wary of cheap toys from China, for example), and keep them from screen play (play personally with them - keep them learning to be social, and keep the electronic radiation minimal on their little brains).

Keep medicines, firearms, machinery, and all dangers out of reach from children - lock up what could harm them. Secure furniture so none will fall over. Put outlet covers in place. Use common sense to keep your home safe.

There are so many dangers in the world for children, more than ever and growing. Be vigilant for them, protective of them, and teach them to advocate for themselves.

Your children deserve all you can do to keep them safe. More tools to help you keep your children safe are available on our page at http://www.doubleii.com/kidbabysafety.html

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Paulina_Roe/2434491