Media has become an integral part of everyday life for youth and families. Media habits that youth develop at an early age may continue through adulthood. Providing support to children to navigate the digital world responsibly – enhance the positive attributes and cope with the challenges and dilemmas – at a young age may increase their abilities to have respectable, meaningful interactions with others through constructive online engagement. Online platforms can offer youth and children a vast virtual world, which increases their exposure to a variety of topics and diverse individuals – good and bad. Professionals and parents serve as the cornerstone to teaching the fundamental skills of digital citizenship to youth and empowering youth to be good digital citizens by helping them understand the virtual world and helping them know how to keep themselves safe within that world. To aid in the healthy development of youth, the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State (Clearinghouse) partnered with the Department of Defense’s Office of Military Community and Family Policy (MC&FP) to create a Digital Empowerment Resource to provide support to professionals and parents as they educate children about what it means to be a good digital citizen and empower them to positively participate in the virtual world.
The Digital Empowerment Resource offers activities and resources that can be used to speak with children and youth about media use and communicate the importance of good digital citizenship. Activities have been developed to make it easier for the professional to identify appropriate material to use in daily lesson planning with children who are 5 to 10 years old and adolescents and teens who are 10 to 18 years old. In addition, resources are provided that offer supplementary support to the professional on specific digital citizenship topics. Furthermore, resources include posters that can be printed and placed in facilities, parent handouts, and family activities that can be used to engage the entire family in practicing good digital citizenship habits.
Podcast
Representatives from the Clearinghouse recently spoke with the Military Family Learning Network about the Digital Empowerment Resource. A podcast recording can be found here: https://militaryfamilieslearningnetwork.org/podcast/exploring-the-thrive-initiatives-digital-empowerment-resource-for-parents-and-professionals-anchored-episode-23/
Digital Empowerment Resource
The Digital Empowerment Resource is available at no cost and can be downloaded directly from the Thrive Website: https://thrive.psu.edu/for-professionals/resources/
