MONDAY 16th May 2010 We are piloting a community
course project this week starting in Massey on Thursday (19th May) at
Massey Community House, Don Buck Rd, Massey from 630-830pm. With bullying a recent issue for many Kiwi schools, Sweet As
Social Media initially started tackling what we consider to be a phenomenally whole issues of "cyberbullying" & "sexting" in our initial viral campaign aimed at making more parents & general users
of sites such as Facebook & Twitter to consider their "online behavior". With crazy reports with statistics such
as 91% of kids having experienced cyberbullying and only 11% of parents
even being aware of the term, we urge parents to take an interest in
what their kids are up to online. Titled, “Parenting
in a Digital World:Kids & Social Media”, our two hour workshop
aims to shift the focus & perception of parents from the technology
to the fact its just a new way that their kids are talking. Emphasizing the three part message of "Engage, Educate & Empower" with
parents, Project Coordinator, Jess Maher, emphasizes the importance of being honest with your
children.
"Remember that time
in your life as a child, where you began to realize maybe your parents didn't know everything and you start to
question some of the life lessons they had given you? Now imagine you
had Google, for kids today this process is happening earlier and earlier
in life. They literally learn
it faster and faster than us so they'll always be ahead-but they are
still kids. While there are a number of sites and services out there to
"watch" you kids online, its better to teach them before they post it, because once its been put out there, in reality there is very little you
can do to properly get rid of it. In my opinion, parents need to
be straight up with their kids and admit to them that the kids know
way more about these technologies than their parents do. But
then remind the kids, that as their parents, they know a lot more about life experience and consequence than they do and explain to them that what is
"cool" at 17, may not want be something they want following them around
for the rest of their lives," states Maher.
With Youth Week coming up from the 21-29th of May,
we hope to organize a
Registered event for the week for the local community & kids in the
Massey area at Massey Community House in conjunction with a number of
other local businesses support. We would like to use this opportunity to
launch our new community initiative aimed at building awareness and discussion around the rights of kids & adults alike online. We then
have plans to develop a way to support and connect these kids to one and
other online using Facebook and the application development facilities
it offers. We are also encouraging all schools locally to consider and review
the process for handling and
managing issues online and to ensure NetSafe's school pack has been
adopted by the school. Maher stated, "the local community doesn't to seem to have
embraced the idea as much as we had hoped to be honest, but we have a
number of influential writers, reporters and social media & ICT
industry experts all coming along, so now I just we also get to have
some local parents! One our explicit aims and reasons for taking this approach was in
the hope that it would help us to start to build a stronger, more
cohesive sense of community to the Massey area."
The group will be doing one
last mail box drop of flyers for the discounted rate for locals on
Thursday nights course this week and hope to also invite along any of
those school counselors, advisors or administrators who are
interested in taking a proactive stance to cyberbullying and "sexting"
issues in their schools to also come along and give their feedback
and insights on the course & project as the organizers would really appreciate the local communities questions and
issues from the front line so to speak. We are inviting any local parents, families and members of school
faculty to enjoy a discount on the event, so we have a limited number
of tickets available for $10 this week, using the discount code
MASSEY001 on our event registration site http://digitalparenting.eventbrite.com.
The first Parenting
in a Digital World: Kids & Social Media workshop will be held this
Thursday (19 May, 2011) from 630pm to 830pm at Massey Community House, 385 Don Buck Road, Massey. Spaces are limited and prior
registration a must, online preferable http://digitalparenting.eventbrite.com or email sweetas@assistnz.com
or phone 09 832 3188 for more information.
Cheers,
The Project Planning Team
Sweet As Social
Media Trust
MEDIA CONTACT
Jess Maher
022 671 4060
Project Coordinator
Sweet As Social Media |