It's cool to be kind
Mind your tone
Goals
Make the right decisions when choosing how and what to communicate.
Identify situations in which waiting until you are face-to-face with someone is a better way to communicate than sending a text or message that may be taken the wrong way.
Let's talk
Itʼs easy to misunderstand
Young people use different types of communication for different kinds of interaction, but messages sent via chat and text can be interpreted differently than they would in person or over the phone.
Have you ever been misunderstood in text? For example, have you ever texted a joke and your friend thought you were being serious – or even mean?
Have you ever misunderstood someone else in a text or chat? What did you do to help clarify the communication? What could you do differently?
Activity
Review messages
Letʼs take a look at these sample text messages on the board. Your children probably have great examples too, so let’s write some more to discuss.
- “Thatʼs so cool”
- “Whatever”
- “Iʼm so mad at you”
- “CALL ME NOW”
- “Kk fine”
Read messages out loud Now
For each message, you are going to ask your children to read it aloud in a specific tone of voice (e.g., 
).
What do you notice? How might these come across to other people? How might each “message sender” better communicate what they really mean?
Takeaway
It can be hard to understand how someone is really feeling when youʼre reading a text. Be sure you choose the right tool for your next communication – and that you donʼt read too much into things that people say to you online. If you are unsure what the other person meant, find out by talking with them in person or on the phone.
Vocabulary
Passwords are the foundation of the security of your online data, teach your child to use strong passwords from a young age. With young children it is best you know what their password(s) are as well. Teach them how to make strong passwords, and choose some together. Explain to your child that passwords are very personal, and that they should never share them, not even with their best friend.
As your child gets older, he/she needs more trust and privacy. Parents have to respect this privacy but they also have to be the person your child trusts and who teaches them to protect their privacy on the Internet. If you want to monitor what they do on social media, you can use parental controls, but always do this in joint consultation and show your child you trust him/her.
Search engines have a safe search filter to prevent children coming into contact with inappropriate content. Only search results that are appropriate for the whole family are shown. This filter is enabled as follows:
Bing: in the upper right corner, click Settings and then Safe Search to enable the filter (you can choose “moderate” and “strict”).
Google: click Settings > Search settings in the lower right corner. Select Turn on SafeSearch.
Yahoo: in the upper right corner, click Settings > Search Preferences and choose SafeSearch mode ("moderate "or "strict").
YouTube also has a mode to filter inappropriate content. Click your account icon in the upper right corner > Restricted Mode and activate. Or you can download the YouTube Kids app on your smartphone, tablet or smart TV. This app is aimed at children aged between 3 and 12 and contains child-friendly videos only.