A rising number of Canadian children – some as young as four years old – are becoming desensitized to porn and violence online and being victimized by their peers, and if adults don’t take action now to boost their digital supervision, the problem will continue to grow as kids increase their screen time amid COVID-19.
Charlene Doak-Gebauer, a leading author, international speaker, and founder and chair of the London, Ont.-based Internet Sense First charity, is on a mission to make digital supervision a household word. At Congress 2021, she will sound the alarm bell, calling on adults to remove their blinders and start putting safeguards in place to protect children online, especially at a time when kids are spending more time studying and socializing virtually due to the pandemic.
“In the absence of digital supervision, the trend is frightening,” she said. “Not only are kids learning to objectify humanity – finding it ‘funny’ to film other kids having sex or getting assaulted and then sharing it – but they’re also facing a rise in peer-to-peer victimization, meaning the real threat could be living next door or in the same class at school,” she explained.
“We’re facing an epidemic of child-on-child sexual assault where the new predator is aged 12 to 15 and they’re preying on kids aged four to eight,” said Doak-Gebauer. “We’re also starting to see children as young as five to seven years old addicted to porn, even though they really don’t understand what it is, and their parents – many of whom are tech-savvy millennials – simply don’t have a clue,” she added, noting that every Canadian school she has visited as a guest speaker has had at least one child charged with producing and distributing child pornography.
“When we bring a gateway to the Internet into our homes, we have to realize it increases our parenting responsibilities 100 per cent,” said Doak-Gebauer. “We have to digitize our parenting skills. We cannot depend on governments, internet service providers and social media to do our job for us.”
The good news is that Doak-Gebauer – a former educator, computer specialist and network administrator – has devoted her work to advancing online child protection since 2014 when a four-year-old member of her own family fell victim to child pornography at the hands of a neighbour. Since then, she has applied her expertise to devise a straightforward, user-friendly approach to her Theory of Digital Supervision©, starting with awareness and including easy-to-use tools and methodologies parents can use to monitor their children’s online behavior such as cellphone mirroring or computer filters. The final prong of her strategy – which is outlined in her latest book entitled The Internet: Are Children in Charge? – is hope.
“No one should raise their hand and say they can’t do this,” Doak-Gebauer said. “Just because your child is fast on a digital device doesn’t give them the IQ of a genius. It’s time to stop feeling inadequate because your kid’s thumbs are quicker than yours and start practicing digital supervision. Anyone can do this and we must.”