The Digital Hustle Africa podcast spent an hour this weekend with arguably East Africa’s best DJ Bush-baby talking about responsible use of the internet by teenagers and how parents are dealing with it.
It was interesting to see how being involved as a parent can make a huge difference in making sure our children are well protected on the internet. DJ Bush Baby was emphatic in his position that parents ought to create an environment of mutual respect and understanding so that the kids are free to share their experiences online.
We also discussed the power of being humble as parents and not be intimidated by technology and therefore leaving it all to the children who definitely still need guidance, especially in their formative years. Educating ourselves as parents on some of the dangers of technology and also the benefits so that we can have an honest conversation with the children is very crucial.
Listening to Tau(DJ Bush baby’s son), was refreshing because you could clearly see that the two had a strong bond and were open to having a conversation on what was acceptable and what was not in as far as the use of the internet is concerned.
The ambitious young man has dreams and aspirations of being a game developer and also running his own YouTube channel called the Wolf gang and eventually sell products and grow his audience.
Understanding how our children use the internet is key, but also being involved and supportive as parents adds a lot of value to how they relate to its use. Know what their aspirations are and educate yourself about those aspirations and together find ways you can make them successful and may also turn them into money-making ventures.
The internet is today’s garden and our children are spending a lot of time in that garden planting and picking up information that will either build them or break them. It is high time we all paid attention and support and nature our contemporary fertile garden for richer and healthier harvests now and in the future.
Our work as CodeImpact and through our voices at DHAPodcast we shall continue to keep this topic alive as long as it is still relevant to our future generations to come. Keep listening and watching this space for more, not only on this topic but others related.