Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Parents get social media insight at event aimed to keep kids safe
CONWAY — As a circuit judge presiding over juvenile court, Troy Braswell has heard testimony in cases ranging from sexual assaults to murders — crimes often perpetrated against children and sometimes by them.
Braswell, Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Carol Crews and Conway police detective Brian Williams spoke last week to an audience of parents and children about the dangers of social media, especially on smartphones, and ways parents can make their children’s use of the devices safer.
Braswell, a judge since 2015, decided to hold the events after “seeing an increase in juvenile court cases that involved the use of technology and/or social media.”
“I also started seeing the emotional impact that the cases were having on the victims and juvenile defendants. I want to be able to help parents and juveniles understand the risks and tools available to help prevent future harm,” he said in an email interview.
The presentation and a question-and-answer session took place at Fellowship Bible Church in Conway and was the most recent of four such events Braswell has offered for parents. Two others were at Conway High School, and one was at Conway Christian School.
In 2016, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office also adopted an Internet safety program called Digital You. Created earlier by AT&T and Common Sense Media, the program offers tips and other information to promote online safety. It also provides for community education events.
The attorney general’s website at arkansasag.gov/ programs/internet-safety/ offers safety information, teaching materials that can be printed, and video warnings such as one where Rutledge cautions parents about an app that can hide pictures on a device.
For Braswell, Crews and Williams, their concerns about online safety also are personal: All three are parents.
“You have to remember that your kids are going through something totally different from what we went through” at their age, Braswell told the church audience. “Having a cellphone today is not the same thing as when I had a flip phone.”
Bullying, for example, can get much worse and spread incredibly fast in the cyber age through online attacks and the sharing of explicit photos, he said. The result is a greater emotional impact and more suicides, he said.
The presenters didn’t try to advise parents on whether to give children phones or other devices. They instead focused on the proper supervision if one is given – knowing who’s having that phone conversation with the child, who’s exchanging texts with the child, what the child is viewing and sharing online.
“If we’re going to give them to our kids, we need to understand the gravity of what that means,” Crews said.
Parents must decide how best to supervise their child’s use of technology, even gaming apps that can allow communication with others, all three said. The form of supervision will vary among families, Braswell said.
Still, he said, “The less you know, the more likely it is that you’re going to end up in my court” with a child, whether that child is a victim or an offender.
Williams told how a parent can control a child’s phone by limiting the apps allowed on it. He allows his daughter only the Instagram app — not Snapchat, for instance. But technology changes, and Instagram has changed some of its rules, and Williams said he hasn’t decided how to deal with that yet.
Williams prefers to check his daughter’s phone in front of her. But he said other parents might opt to monitor the child’s phone use through software.
Parents can reward children who use their phones wisely, talk with them when problems arise and even take away a phone for a time when needed, the presenters said.
Trying to supervise phone use of teenagers who have used them with little or no supervision for years will be difficult. In such cases, parents can start by talking with their child, Braswell said.
So many times, Crews said, the parents of a child sexual assault victim say they didn’t see the crime coming because often the offender is someone the child knows, maybe a friend’s parent or a family member. She estimated that 90 percent of the offenders the prosecutor’s office deals with were “someone known to the child.”
Braswell also suggested parents look at the example they are setting for their children.
“How are you engaging in social media? … Are you attacking? … What is your tone online?” he asked.