What I hate most about parenting this generation of kids is that there I have no previous parenting model to draw from.
I can make rules in this house about when my kids should go to bed, start earning money for chores, how much I want to pay them for chores, what to do if they break a collarbone, how late they can stay outside, etc… because my parents paved that path. I know based on my experience with those rules whether or not I want to incorporate them into my household or tweak them because they sucked.
But Ipods and wifi did not exist when I was a child so deciding whether or not my kids have access to that stuff is entirely new and unpaved for me. Spoiler alert: My kids have access to that stuff.
All of my kids have had ipods, I have studied all of the privacy settings and I do a quick (sometimes distracted) review of the apps and games they want to download.
Somehow they learned about Clash of Clans and at first glance I thought it seemed harmless enough. You build your own pretend little clan, you can join your friends clans, you can interact together and help each other get coins and reach the next level, etc…
I didn’t notice there is a live Twitter-like stream for all the gamers and that you can share things like your HOME ADDRESS on that world wide feed. Kainoa swears he didn’t really share our home address, but he had the game removed from his ipod after that stunt.
There were a lot of tears, but he begged for MONTHS to have the game re-installed. He promised he would never do such a thing again. We talked about privacy and what we can and cannot share.
He. Wore. Me. Down.
I allowed him to get the game again and Laina joined. They both had clans. They spent tons of time building their clans. I told them they were not allowed to join other users clans that they did not know.
Instead, Laina put out a request for “nice people who do not swear” to join her clan. I should have been more specific, “do not join strangers clans AND do not invite strangers to join your clan” because what happened next is that someone joined her clan and then asked her to send naked pictures to him. He said she would enjoy it.I hate Clash of Clans. I paid my kids $20 each to REMOVE the game from their ipods. I feel stupid that I even allowed the game to begin with.
*insert image of me vomiting*
*insert image of shaking my fists at the heavens while screaming “WHY ME!?!”
I hate Clash of Clans. I paid my kids $20 each to REMOVE the game from their ipods. I feel stupid that I even allowed the game to begin with. I feel like I have a decent pulse on what is happening in this techland, but I did not do my diligent research on that game and that lack of supervision permitted the nasty underbelly of this planet into our home and into my little sheltered girl’s head.
Most of us parents do not have previous experience with being raised on today’s technology. We might not be able to draw from the mistakes our own parents made with us, but we can help each other. Allow me to act as a little reminder to take some time and look at the games your kids have access to, run a search to find out what people are saying about those games and decide whether or not it’s something your kids should have access to. A quick search would have told me that Clash of Clans can be a “pedophile fishing platform” and that “hyper-vigilance is required.”
I’m an idiot.
There are a ton of ways to find information about the games on your devices. I happened to find Common Sense Media and I think it’s a decent place to start. Type the name of the app you want to learn about in the search bar on that site, they provide an overview of that app, and then make sure to read the parent reviews. This is the perfect time of year to clean up those apps!
the lovely one says
That is terrifying. My daughter’s current favorite is Poptropica. It seems harmless enough, but I’m going to common sense media RIGHT NOW just to make sure.
Gigi says
I don’t know how many times I’ve said to myself, “Thank God, the internet was in it’s infancy when mine was growing up.” I can’t even begin to imagine trying to navigate parenting in this day and age. I’m so sorry that your girl was exposed to this.
Donnamay says
^^ What Gigi said……… Scary!