Making Good Decisions Online and #ShareAwesome Contest

The National PTA and LifeLock are teaming up for  #ShareAwesome, an advocacy campaign designed to encourage families to embrace technology and use it for good, making positive, safe decisions online.  Secondly they wish to open up a conversation between parents and kids, so that teens and tweens can make good decisions online.

This campaign is of particular interest to me, because every afternoon when I sit down at my desk to edit photos or write I post, I can’t help but overhear a young gamer playing on his computer in the next room.  When he’s not at school, participating in activities, or sleeping, Noah is glued to his computer! The fact that we can hear him through the walls is a good thing, as it gives us a chance to monitor his activities without constantly looking over his shoulder.  But apart from this, we try to encourage positive and safe behavior online, so that we won’t have to worry about Noah in times when we can’t be there to listen in.

I think the best way to encourage positive and safe behavior both online and offline is to live by example.  I try to do this with the content I create.  If you are a regular visitor to my blog and/or social media pages you know that I share ideas for women and moms:  recipes, housekeeping, decor, family, pets, health, and beauty.  I basically choose topics I enjoy and that I feel can allow me to be creative but also constructive and all times send positive messages.

Noah doesn’t actually look at my blog, but he does see a lot of the projects and products that are featured here.  But whether he looks at it or not, I want to always create a positive image and message.  From the moment I made a choice to start my blog, I decided to give it a title and purpose that would scream, “Positivity” and also reflect my own personality (that girl you know who’s always smiling).  For a blogger like me, this is a part of branding, but it is also about my own personal image and how that image reflects on my family and how it impacts them.

I would extend this idea to social media like Facebook.  As much as I enjoy the site, there is a lot of negativity there and on the internet as a whole.  Noah doesn’t really use social media very much yet, but when he does I would remind him that anyone and everyone can see what you put out there.  For this reason, you need to watch what you say.  If you wouldn’t want your mother or grandmother to see it, then you probably don’t need to say it.  Also, I would advise him to not be tempted to jump on the “negative comments bandwagon.”  Let people say what they want to say, and just leave the negativity to everyone else.

Aside from talking to your kids about what they are talking about and sharing online, it is important to talk about safety.  If your kids are a gamer like Noah, you should always make sure you know who they are playing with online.

Contest! The #ShareAwesome conntest is about getting social media users to  share a smart and safe decision, an uplifiting accomplishment, or positive action for hte good of others.  Snap a photo of an awesome moment in your day and share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the #ShareAwesome hashtag

Students who enter the #ShareAwesome contest between September 15 – November 30, 2014 will have a chance to win fantastic prizes, including tablets and a $2,500 scholarship!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.