DFi - Helping Parents with Children's Social Media

Why do I support DFi?

The year was 2010 and I was asked to be on a panel for a town hall meeting put on by the Collier County Public School system here in Naples, Florida. I didn’t know what to expect and frankly I was taken a little aback at the amount of people who had shown up. I was expecting perhaps 50 to 100 but it looked to be more like 200 to 300.

The discussion was tame and everyone on the panel was shedding light on this whole new digital and social world that our kids were being exposed to and the parents were listening. I mean really listening. I could sense it.  At one point, the panel was talking about Facebook and I offered up my opinion. I was loudly cheered after I had commented that no one under the age of 15 should really be on “any” social network with the exception of Club Penguin and certainly not Facebook. 

At that time, Facebook was exploding. Parents were scared of the soon to be monolith and for good reason. There were more unknowns than knowns about the platform and its looming and shaky privacy issues were concerning. This was made even more evident to me at the very end of the panel session when the floor was opened up for questioning.

The hands shot up in the air as if a 4th grade teacher had just asked her class who wanted ice cream. Or better yet, if she had asked her class who knew how to download an app… 

Except this happened to be the parents of 3rd graders and 4th graders and every grade in between all the way up to seniors in high school; and the question wasn’t who wanted ice cream or who could download an app, but who had a question about social media and the impact it might be having on their child.

The questions were fast and furious but the answers required more time, thought and detail; three things that were in short supply on that day. Also, what was on short supply, qualified people who could answer the questions. I was the only one who could give an educated answer. It was my ah-ha moment.

That moment in time, where I was the only one who could answer the bulk of the questions on this panel of school administrators, lawyers and law enforcement officials, would set me on a path to try and help as many parents as I could with their fears, concerns and questions surrounding digital devices, mobile apps and social media platforms and the impact they might have on their children. I didn’t know how I was going to do it but I knew I had to do something.

Fast forward to 2018 and the Digital Futures Initiative is now a reality as a free online resource for children, parents and educators taught by School Resource Officers that can and does shed light on how to navigate the digital, mobile and social mine-field that awaits every child who is handed a mobile phone, an Ipad and a computer.

My goal? To have DFi in every school system, taught at every grade level throughout the US and possibly, the world.

This is only the beginning but I know it has to be done and it will be done as soon as we find more people that have the passion to make a difference.  Please consider supporting DFi today.