Monitoring and Supervising children on the Internet: Rethinking Parental responsibility

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Monitoring and Supervising children on the
Internet Rethinking Parental responsibility

• Syahirah Abdul Shukor
• PhD candidate
• Institute of Law, Politics and Justice
• Emails.abdul.shukor_at_law.keele.ac.uk

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Overview

• There are discussions that parents should bear
  the responsibility in protecting their children
  from the harm
• United States courts have decided that the
  burden of protection from media content in the
  home firmly rests on parents.
• It was argued that solutions must come from the
  family, stating, people in their own homes can
  control the events in their own living room. They
  can indeed turn off the TV.

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Overview

• There is an increasing notion to put the blame on
  parents. Under English Law Parental order, the
  Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003.
• Aetiological researchers link between youth crime
  and parental responsibility.

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• Popular belief that parents are entirely
  responsible for childrens behaviour and learning
  which is the most mistaken assumptions in
  parenting.
• Evans, et al (1993) The Fallacy of Parent
  Responsibility

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Overview

• Why parental responsibility?
• Parents as the moral guardian
• Moral panics on children being exploited through
  the Internet, paedophiles, child pornography,
  etc.
• Harm inflicted through the Internet to children.
• How about children harm others via the Internet?
  Hacking, cyber bullying, suicide via the Internet.

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Overview

• Cyberoffender- lack of statistical data on the
  involvement of children.
• Who shall bear the responsibility when children
  use the Internet?

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• Commenting on cyber offender, Prof. David Wall
  (2001) said as follow
• offenders are more likely to share a broader
  range of social characteristics and the cases of
  hacking and other Internet related offences that
  have been reported in the media would suggest
  they are likely to be young, clever and fairly
  lonely individuals who are of middle-class
  origin, often motivated without criminal records,
  often possessing expert knowledge and often
  motivated by a variety of financial and
  non-financial goals

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Overview

• How serious is computer delinquency?
• How children are being mould based on the
  information available on the Internet?
• Illegal and harmful information
• Sexually explicit websites
• Is computer or the Internet a new babysitter for
  the new generation?
• Sherry Turkle ( 1995) parents fear is they are
  not familiar with the technology

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Parental responsibility laws

• Not a new concept, it has been part of the
  response to youth offending since the 19th
  century.
• The relationship between child and parents has
  been constructed in terms of parental
  responsibilities.
• The problem with these terms?

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• Considerable debates about parental
  responsibility and their childs delinquency
• Parental laws may indicate a confusing message
  that young people can discard responsibility to
  their parents
• Vulnerable parents?

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Parental responsibility in the advance of the
Internet- where to?

• Akdeniz ( 2001) argues that the current solutions
  at various regulations, for instance, the
  development of rating and filtering systems, may
  not be the real answer to the existing problem.
  If that is the case, shall we seek for private
  solution, that is by imposing the responsibility
  to parents?
• How about parental responsibility with the
  advance of ICT like the Internet?

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• Ferrier ( 2000) stated as follow,
• parents must be vigilant to the ever-changing
  content technologies. Ultimately, they are
  responsible for maintaining their childs
  innocence.

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• Flint (2000) argues
• At the end of the day, whatever the law and
  rules enacted and however vigilant the
  authorities, there can be no substitute for
  parental responsibility and oversight. If you
  dont know where children are going whether on
  cyberspace or realspace,it can hardly be
  unexpected if they go somewhere where you prefer
  they avoided.

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• Popular fear about the affects of new media just
  like television. Yet, the Internet is different
  as it is more interactive.
• Jagondinzinki (2004) argued that we fail to see
  our children and when we finally do, they are
  monsters we never expected.
• Much emphasis is put on protecting children from
  being victimized on the Internet, this can be
  seen from the mushrooming of websites on childs
  safety while surfing the Internet

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• In reality, do parents really care with their
  childrens activities on the Internet?
• Research findings by Filkenhor (2000) revealed
  that parents are not necessarily well informed
  about their childrens activates on the Internet,
  in particular adolescents

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• Livingstone (2004) in her observation argues that
  there is an internal threat about supervising and
  monitoring children on the Internet, which is the
  risks of crucial relationship of trust between
  parents and children.
• Valentine and Holloway ( 2001) argue as follow
• ICT emerges in different ways in differential
  household depending on parents differential in
  understanding of technology and conceptions of
  online and offline space, family regimes and
  parenting styles, and differential levels of
  social and competencies among household members

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• Parents and filtering software?
• economical burden?
• Efficiency of the software?
• Subscribing firewalls or filtering software from
  ISP ( Internet Service Provider)?

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• To make parents responsibility for the adverse
  effects of the Internet to children per se is not
  fair
• Many adults need help in learning how to grow
  with their children in the advance of ICT.
• Some need education and guidance from
  professional in order to function as competent
  parents .
• the notion to totally blame or punish the parents
  for their child misdeed or crime need to be
  placed with caution.

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• Fortin (2003) argues that government intervention
  in family life between all parents and children
  through legislation has traditionally provoked
  strong hostility especially if such legislation
  threatens to interfere with the parent-child
  relationship

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• Parenthood itself should not be seen as burden
  but it is a developmental stage in the life
  cycle.
• Parenthood itself need the support from state and
  society at large.
• Westman ( 1999) states that the maturing and
  emotionally satisfying elements of parenthood are
  fundamental, if not explicit, motivations to
  become parents

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Thank you. Q A