Kids need to be media savvy in social media age, says author Barbara Coloroso

Ian White speaks with internationally known speaker and author Barbara Coloroso about teaching, parenting and bullying in the age of social media.

Barbara Coloroso has been giving parenting advice for more than five decades and sees the dangers of social media for children as no worse than challenges in the past, only different.

“It’s important from a very young age that we teach our kids to be media savvy and wise about their use and, as in all areas of parenting, constantly increase responsibility and decision-making for the children and then decrease limits and boundaries,” Coloroso told CTV News.

Coloroso is the author of several parenting books, among them Kids Are Worth It, Parenting With Wit and Wisdom In Times of Chaos and Loss along with Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide.

She says Australia’s approach to kids and social media is the right approach, by banning its use for kids under 16.

“Before that we can teach young people to use those tools so when they actually get on a platform they are savvy about that and know how to detect a fake, a deep fake, how to avoid getting into a situation where they’re being targeted or they find themselves in a group that’s targeting others,” Coloroso said.

Coloroso speaks in Calgary Thursday, February 5 at the Delta Calgary South at an event sponsored by Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School.