Parents: The Importance of Discussing YouTube with Your Children

Are you a parent? If so, is your child old enough to use the internet? If you have a child who is high school or even middle school, there is a good chance that you are concerned with internet safety, as you should be. Online, there are a large number of websites, including YouTube, which appeal to your children. The only problem with these websites is that if they are not properly used, they can be dangerous. That is why it is advised that you discuss popular internet sites, like YouTube, with your children.

When it comes to discussing YouTube with their children, there are many parents who wonder exactly what YouTube is. If you have never heard of YouTube or visited it before, it is advised that you do before talking to your children about it. Once you visit the YouTube website, you will see that it is a video sharing website. Those who are thirteen years and older are able to register for a free YouTube account. Once an account has been registered, those with accounts can watch YouTube videos, rate them, or discuss them with other YouTube members, as well as share their own videos online.

With YouTube safety, most of the focus should be placed on uploading and sharing videos, but it is also important that you touch on watching videos as well. There are a number of YouTube videos that have adult content. While YouTube tries to ensure that each of these videos is marked, in one way or another, not all are. You will want to remind your child they are they are just, a child. You may even want to put limits on the type of videos that they watch. For instance, it is more that possible to find educational videos on YouTube, like how-to guides. It may be a good idea for your children to view those types of videos, as they will likely receive a little bit of education at the same time.

As previously stated, most of the focus should be placed on uploading videos to YouTube. In the past, a large number of YouTube members posted videos that had clips from their favorite movies, television shows, or music videos. Due to copyright issues, YouTube is trying to cut down on these types of videos, as they are actually illegal with out the proper permission. You may want to explain this to your children, as they may not be familiar with copyrights and how they work. In most cases, should your children post a video on YouTube that they don’t have permission to do, the video will likely be removed, but as more and more companies are fed up with their work being displayed on the internet, more serious action may be taken.

It is also important that you talk to your children about safety, when sharing a video on YouTube or even when making a video with the sole purpose of putting it on the YouTube website. One popular type of video that many young adults, including high school students, are making are video blogs. Video blogs are like traditional blogs, where they outline the happenings in ones life, but they are in video format. The only problem with video blog is that many YouTube members are sitting right in front of the camera, exposing their faces for everyone to see. While this can be considered safe, giving out too much information, while showing your face isn’t. You will want to let your children know that they shouldn’t, under any circumstances, give out their full name, their address, or their phone numbers, even cell phone numbers.

It is also advised that you talk to your children about internet predators. Although YouTube members are able to talk to each other, the dangers of meeting online predators aren’t as high as on traditional social networking sites, like MySpace, but the threat still exists. Let your children know that you do not want him or her talking to other YouTube members, as they never really know who is behind the computer. If you and your children cannot reach an agreement, you may want to think about blocking the YouTube website from your computers.

Children and Violence

How far does violence extend, how do we determine exactly who is responsible for the violence that children are seeing on television and in music. What about video games, who is taking the responsibility for the violence and awful things that, are occurring right before the eyes of the youth today. Many politicians are looking to eagerly blame the media and entertainment industry. Is that the correct place to lay the blame? Perhaps parents are the people ultimately to blame.

More parents today than ever before are working longer hours just to stay afloat financially. This alone results in phenomenal numbers of children being left with a television as the babysitter in charge of teaching right from wrong. How does a child learn the difference between right and wrong, when their parents are nowhere to be found? Where does the parents' responsibility to parent a child and the governments' right to parent a child merge?

Does the government even have a right to parent children? Should the government be allowed to determine what is appropriate for all children to watch, or should that be ultimately left up to the parents to decide on their own? There have been television shows, movies, musical artists, and even books banned because the government does not approve.

Where is the line drawn in who controls what the children are watching? Is it really up to the parents, or is it left to the children to decide on their own? When did parents lose the ability to control what their child watches, and when did the parent become subject to the child's own opinion? While some advances in technology have been wonderful, there is also much effort by the government to control what a parent does with their own child, and it is this more than anything that has caused controversy on a civil liberties basis.

There have been several inventions and developments that are able to help parents monitor their children; from the v-chip to programs that log instant messenger programs.

These developments are great for the parents looking to monitor their child themselves, but what about the music industry. Most parents are constantly told that the violence their child is exposed to is the fault of the music industry. The blame is placed on the singers and producers for releasing the music.

Much blame is placed everywhere but the parents for taking responsibility for their own children and determining what is best for them. With politicians attempting to punish some area of the entertainment industry each time a national tragedy occurs, it puts a major crimp on the ability of parents to decide for themselves what is acceptable for their child and what is not. Many are left to allow their child to choose from the options that are left, once the government has omitted the choices that are bad.

Is this censorship, or helping raise children? Many seem to think it leans heavily towards censorship, a place the governments should not be treading. Many others tend to feel that it should be a high priority of the government to protect everyone from something that can potentially be bad, without even giving people the option to make their own decisions.

The issue as to what extent the government should intervene with the way in which we live our lives is hotly contested, and it works in a much larger circle than just the control of our children. Should the government take a step back, and allow society to use its freedoms and powers for self regulation, or is there a need for intervention to ensure the greater good and justice for the welfare of society as a whole? For the time being, it seems as though the most pragmatic approach relates somewhere in the middle, although it will be interesting to see developments in this area over the coming years.