New media presents new parenting problems

No-one ever said parenting would be easy but the past fortnight - perhaps more than any other before – has brought to the surface just how hard parenting in the multimedia age has become.
Quite simply, modern communication technology makes our children vulnerable and it does so on so many levels.
Take the Virginia Tech massacre, a tragedy of unquestionable proportions.
The ramifications of this are spreading way beyond the US campus where Cho Seung Hui killed 32 faculty members and students and himself.
The language used in reporting of this – America’s worst school massacre was a phrase used repeatedly – undoubtedly made children feel especially vulnerable.
But what happened next goes to the heart of why new media will create new challenges for parents.
First there is the impact of the citizen journalist on the coverage of the event. The digital native students of the university blogged, You Tubed, videoed and text messaged their way through the crisis. And the mainstream new organisations fell over each other to get their hands on the material.
At one level this is evidence of the advantages of citizen journalism but take a look at I Report on CNN and what you see is mobile phone footage collected by a student running into the line of fire.
Eagerness to engage in citizen journalism put students in the line of fire literally but rather than being disturbed by the outcome, networks rewarded the risk-taking by high rotation screening of the footage.
The risks go beyond those collecting the footage. With almost every citizen on every street corner now armed with video-capable mobile phones, the potential for disturbing footage to be collected and screened in a way that is liable to disturb children is greater than at any other time in the past.
It’s almost impossible to believe, for example, that children wouldn’t have been disturbed by the image of Cho Seung Hui aiming a gun at them on the front page of The Courier-Mail in the aftermath of the Virgina Tech massacre.
Now it seems a multi-media enabled maniac with a gun can use the media to spread a message of hate to the masses.
It can – and has – been argued that the footage screened and posted in the middle of the killing spree should be aired because it gives the public a vital insight into the mind of a killer.
Equally it can – and has – be argued that it merely provides a recipe for other deranged individuals to have their manifestos broadcast across the globe.
What is more difficult to understand is just how we might benefit from graphic self portraits taken by Cho Seung Hui aimed in our face from the front page of a daily newspaper.
More restraint is clearly called for.
The other tragic event – the suicide death in an apparent pact of teenagers Stephanie Gestier and Jodie Gater - also raises questions that must be faced by parents in the multimedia age.
We need to understand how our children are communicating with each other. We need to look for signs for an unhealthy addiction to communicating online. It won’t be easy and it’s not something that parents can be expected to tackle alone.
Indeed comments by Prime Minister John Howard - that parents and not regulators – must act to prevent a repeat tragedy are unhelpful at best.
"I think the greatest thing that has to be said about this is that parental responsibility in the end is the key to behaviour by children," Mr Howard told ABC Radio.
Parents have a role to play but blaming the parents in what is clearly a very complicated area is to dodge any responsibility which must be taken by government and content regulators.
Why aren’t sites that allow uncensored, defamatory and dangerous material being called into questions?
Why isn’t the government taking a lead?
Parenting has always been difficult but with our kids increasing using tools that hadn’t been dreamed of when most of us were growing up and in ways few of us truely understand we have a right to expect some support from governments.
Our kids deserve it.