My 11 year old didn’t mean any harm when she set up her own Amazon account. She just did as she was prompted.

But that act on Christmas day made me wake up as a parent.

I thought I was doing enough by monitoring their computer usage. I thought I was doing enough by having her email linked on my phone to monitor.

But as she now owns a Kindle Fire and her friend has a smartphone, I am having to start have tougher conversations with her.

About how to act online.

About what to share.

About when it’s ok to set up an account. 

For a mom whose school had one computer at that age, it is a whole new world with kids and computers. One that changes all the time.

Today I want to share resources to talk internet safety with your scouts. Because I don’t think you can share enough. 

A Florida Girl Scout Council has a new Internet safety patch with requirements online. It’s geared by grade level and offers kid-friendly scenes featuring Garfield. It made for a fantastic family discussion (even though we are outside the Council). Safe and Secure Online is working on rolling this out to other Girl Scout councils, but you can still access materials online.

For Cadette Girl Scouts, the Amaze journey book has a number of activities relating to cyber safety, online relationships and cyberbullying. Even though our Cadettes have technically finished our journey, we are hanging on to our book to do additional activities during our meetings as filler. There’s also the Cadette Netiquette badge as well.

WAGGGS has a Surf Smart program, which includes a number of “offline” activities and games to roll concepts in.

And I love the Boy Scouts NetSmartz program. Truthfully I think it does a better job than the quick Internet safety pledge we have as Girl Scouts.

What other resources have helped you have discussions about Internet safety with your scouts? Share your ideas below!