What #AlexFromTarget Can Teach Your Kids

A few weeks ago Alex Lee was a normal, 16-year-old high school student working at Target. He was an average social media user and had 144 Twitter followers.

But with one unsolicited photo and a catchy hashtag, Alex is now “internet famous.” He has over 70,000 Twitter followers, appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show, and has fans waiting in his line at Target to capture their own selfie with #AlexFromTarget.

Alex’s fame, like his photo, was unsolicited. He was merely going through the motions of a normal day when 15-year-old Brooklyn Reiff captured his photo and Tweeted it to her friend. Brooklyn didn’t plan on the photo going viral, but it did.

Alex’s photo along with the hashtag #AlexFromTarget was retweeted 800,000 times.

And while this may sound like an exciting situation for the teenagers, it brings up some pretty scary implications about what can happen through the power of the Internet. It also brings to light some important social media lessons that parents should share with their kids.

The world can see what you share on the Internet. Brooklyn didn’t plan on making Alex an online star. She meant to share his photo with her friend, not the world. But because she used a non-private account on Twitter, her photo was available to everyone. Kids and teens need to realize that the content they share has the potential to be seen by thousands of others and that mass-exposure has its negatives.
Over-exposure on the Internet isn’t always a good thing. Kids may look at Alex and Brooklyn and desire the same sort of online fame, but they need to know that online exposure isn’t always as good as it looks. This level of exposure comes with security issues. The world now knows Brooklyn and Alex’s full names, along with Alex’s place of employment. Strangers are lined up to see Alex at Target and Brooklyn has already received inappropriate attention from online strangers. Kids need to realize that online social sites aren’t for finding fame or connecting with strangers. They are for connecting with known family and friends.
Be mindful of the privacy of others. We focus on telling our kids to be mindful of the details, photos, and information they share about themselves. But we also need to make them aware of the information they share about others. They need to understand that they could attract unwanted attention and danger to others when they post their photos without their permission.
Not everything you see on the Internet is true. After the news of this story broke, an online marketing company Breakr made claims that they triggered the spread of #AlexFromTarget as part of a viral social media campaign. The story gained traction and began spreading around the Internet as a popular story — until the story was deemed false. Alex’s photo was in fact organically spread around the Internet without any marketing push. We need to remind our children of this fact, and make sure they know they can’t believe everything they see online.

Related: The Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

The power of social media users is large and profound. We should teach our children to use that power fairly, responsibly, and maturely in order to protect themselves and those around them.

Are you unsure of how your teens and kids are using social media? Use the MamaBear App (available for iPhones and Andriods) to connect with your children’s social media accounts so you can be sure they are appropriately using their online platforms.

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014

16 Steps Parents Can Take Toward a Safer, Less Stressful Halloween

Halloween is supposed to be a spooky day. With a few precautions you can help keep it from being a scary day.

Worrying about the dangers of tricking-or-treating, carving pumpkins, and candy consumption leaves many parents anxious about the year’s most haunted holiday. Follow our steps to have an enjoyable Halloween with just the right amount of spooky.

Steps Parents Can Take Toward a Safer Halloween

Carving Pumpkins

Don’t use kitchen knives. Instead use utensils designed to carve pumpkin. They are safer and easier for kids to use. (Carving Tip: Cut from the bottom so that it is easier to clean the pumpkin and add your lighting.)

Let little kids do the scooping. Younger kids that are too young to carve will enjoy getting sticky by pulling out the innards of their pumpkin.

Decorate instead of carve. Younger kids that aren’t old enough to carve can draw faces on their pumpkin with markers and/or decorate with colorful tape, paint, or accessories.

Getting Dressed Up

Look for flame resistant costumes. Before purchase, check costume tags and ensure that all material is flame resistant. This also goes for accessories, wigs, and capes.

Make your kids glow in the dark. Red Tricycle suggests a few fun ways to make Halloween costumes visible at night.

Add reflective tape to treat buckets and backs of shoes. (Try Duct Tape’s heavy duty glow in the dark roll.)
Dress kids with LED accessories and glow stick jewelry such as flashing headbands, bracelets, and necklaces.
Embellish costumes with iron-on reflective decals and patches.

Test make-up before applying. Test out a dab of make-up a few nights before Halloween to make sure the make-up doesn’t irritate your child’s skin.

Trick-or-Treating

Decide if your kids are mature enough to trick-or-treat without you. According to Safekids.org, children under the age of 12 should not trick-or-treat alone at night without adult supervision. But age isn’t always an indicator of a kid’s maturity level, so decide based on your kid’s attitude and sensibility if they are ready to trick-or-treat on their own.

Teach kids how to cross the street safely. Go over safety rules for crossing streets:

Always cross at street corners and crosswalks.
Look left, right, and left again before you cross. Keep looking as you cross.
When a driver stops or slows to allow you to cross the street, make eye contact to ensure that they see you.
Don’t look at your phone while crossing the street.

Create a route. Look at a map and create a map for your child to follow while trick-or-treating. Create a route that limits the number of times kids need to cross busy streets. Direct the route so that it crosses familiar territory and homes of known family or friends (for emergencies).

Check-ins. Set times and places for check-ins. You can use MamaBear app to allow for easy, one-click check-ins or to set automatic alerts for when your kids reach certain destinations.

Related: How to Receive Automatic Check-ins With MamaBear

Discuss stranger danger. Review situations that your children should avoid while trick-or-treating.

Don’t approach houses that don’t have lights on.
Never ever accept an invitation to go into a house, shed, haunted house, or any type of obstructed or concealed location.
Never accept a ride from a stranger.

Make an emergency plan. Discuss safe places to stop (homes of family or friends) along the way that includes a fully charged phone battery.

Eating Candy

Give your kids a snack before they go trick-or-treating. This will make kids less likely to want to eat along the way (and combat crankiness).

Tell kids to wait to dig in. Kids will want to dig into their candy while on the road, but tell them to wait. Explain to them that you need to inspect the candy before indulge.

Teach them what is safe to eat. If you know your kids won’t wait, teach them to only eat sealed, commercially-wrapped candies from well-known family and friends. Teach them how to inspect the wrappers to make sure candy is safe.

Portion candy and enjoy Halloween in November. Limit the amount of candy that kids can eat per day or week. Explain to them that this will let Halloween last far into November.

Halloween should be an enjoyable time for spooky, family fun. Go through these tips with your kids and use the MamaBear Family Safety app to ensure that this year’s Halloween is spooky, but never scary for parents and kids. MamaBear Family Safety app is available for both iPhone and Android devices.

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014

7 Fall Driving Safety Tips

The following post is a guest blog from Jason Fidishun. Jason loves working with John’s Driving School, a company dedicated to teaching residents of Lower Bucks County proper driving techniques for over 40 years. When Jason isn’t teaching, he enjoys spending time with his family and traveling.

7 Fall Driving Safety Tips

Throughout the fall and into the holiday season, thousands of parents pack their college students up to move to a university, while other residents head out on the roads to visit family and friends. Roads and highways quickly become over-crowded, so it is important to drive with caution on the roads. Heed these driving safety tips to lessen you or your young driver’s chances of being involved in an accident on the highways this fall.

Buckle up. Whether you are coasting around your favorite mountain town or cruising down a highway, it is important to always wear your seatbelt. Make sure that children are safely buckled into the backseat, and that infants are tucked into properly secured car seats. Wearing a seatbelt can mean the difference between life and death in a car accident, so be sure to buckle up when heading out on the road.

Check tires. Give your tires a thorough inspection before heading out this fall. Test the air pressure, and inspect for any leaks or punctures that could cause problems on the road. Ensure that there is a spare tire in your trunk in case anything goes wrong during your travels.

Service your vehicle. Before taking any kind of road-trip, it is a good idea to have your car inspected to ensure it is running properly. Have your oil changed, tires rotated, and battery checked to prevent breakdowns on the highways.

Observe speed. It is extremely important to monitor your speed at all times while operating a car. This is especially important when driving on major highways, and through towns where the speed may only be 25 miles-per-hour. Make yourself aware of the speed limit in the area you are in, and pay attention for changes in speed throughout your travels.

Have patience. You are more than likely to experience traffic when traveling this fall, especially on the weekends. Just remember to take it easy, and do not rush or drive erratically. It is better to arrive late to your destination safely than to never get there at all.

Watch out. Pay attention to the road and the things surrounding your car at all times. Avoid looking away from the roads and becoming distracted by texting or searching for good music. Be especially careful of other drivers around you, as they may not be paying close attention to you or your vehicle. Also watch out for pedestrians attempting to cross the street, as they have the right of way at crosswalks.

Be prepared. Keep your vehicle stocked with items to use in case of emergency. Have a first aid kit handy, as well as items like flares and reflective traffic warning triangles to warn other vehicles in the event of a breakdown.

In order to arrive safely to your destination, heed these driving safety tips.

photo credit: Nicholas A. Tonelli via Flickr cc

October 23, 2014October 23, 2014

Snappening: What Snapchat’s Third Party Hack Means for Our Kids

In the wake of celebrity iCloud security breaches came another digital information privacy hack. Only this time it’s not celebrity information that was shared with strangers online; it was our children’s.

In mid-October, The Pirate Bay posted almost 98,000 files that included 13GB of photos and videos originally sent through the social media app Snapchat, according to Mashable.

Social media journalists called the leak the “Snappening,” and as parents, we need to be familiar with what this privacy leak means for our children.

What Information Was Released?

Over half of Snapchat’s users are between the ages of 13 and 17, which means the hacked content was generated primarily by children.

Snapchat’s users often send and receive private photos and videos via the social media app. They feel safe sharing private information through the app because it is designed to delete information after a certain amount of time or alert the user that the image has been saved (if another user captures the image via screenshot).

This application feature leads many teens and kids tend to think Snapchat is a secure place to share private information they normally wouldn’t share. That private information often includes racy, nude, or illicit images.

How Did the Information Get Out?

Snapchat’s servers were not hacked, and the images and videos were not taken out of their database. They were access through a third-party site called Snapsaved.com.

Snapsaved allowed users to save and access their snaps online, which goes against the main principle of Snapchat’s program. On Snapsaved, images and videos can be saved without the sender’s knowledge, also unlike Snapchat’s app.

The third party app has since taken down its site and released the following statement via their Facebook page, “As soon as we discovered the breach in our systems, we immediately deleted the entire website and the database associated with it. As far as we can tell, the breach has effected [sic] 500MB of images, and 0 personal information from the database.”

So What Does This Mean for Our Kids?

There have been mixed reports about whether or not the leaked content included illicit images of children. But the big message here is that this should be a warning.

Related: Helping Your Teen be Safe on Social Media

Kids need to understand that the information they share online is not as private as they think. Even when shared on sites that seem secure, information may still be leaked. Before they capture, send, or share an image, our kids need to consider the possibility that the image may be shared without their consent. They should always think before posting anything personal or reputation damaging.

Hackers are out to prove that they can access information that is off limits, and they don’t care if the information is from celebrities, ordinary people, or our children.

As parents, it is our job to teach our children about the danger of oversharing on social sites and to monitor the way our children are using those sites. Learn how MamaBear Family Safety App can you help connect with your kids on their social media accounts.