FAMILIES

Parenting isn't easy. It can often feel overwhelming.  Throw in the Internet, social networks, computers, mobile, and gaming devices and things can often seem impossible.  In this section, you'll find some straightforward advice and tools on how to navigate this digital world with your family.  You don't need to read everything.  Each article and section has been designed to be a self-contained reference

Family Media Agreements

Here you'll find family media and cell phone agreements to help families with guidelines and expectations for media use, appropriate behavior online, checklists to help discuss various topics

How You Can Promote Safety

All safety—especially mobile and online safety—begins at home. The habits you exhibit about technology use in your home will be the same habits your children learn. Ask yourself what you consider appropriate or inappropriate uses of technology and then compare that with how you might be acting. In addition to your living example, we outline some recommendations you might want to consider for your home.

How to Use This Site

We've tried to make this guide as simple and practical as possible. It's intended to be a starting point for parents of faith who may not know where to turn, what to do, or just need some quick information and practical guidance. This guide is just that—a guide. The sections are intended to give you an overview of the key issues and some thoughtful ways of proceeding.

What do I need to Secure?

Media is increasingly being consumed through online services. These services offer a wide range of content—from kids to adult. Parental controls, which allow you to filter content, are often available but need to be activated. Parental controls need to be enabled on each device or service: from TVs to tablets. If a device has access to multiple services, then parental controls for will need to be activated for each service.

If You Don't Read Anything Else, Then at Least Read This

Being a parent isn't easy. It can often feel overwhelming. Throw in the Internet, social networks, computers, mobile, and gaming devices and things can often seem impossible. That's where this safety guide comes in. Jointly developed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA), this site is an attempt to give you some simple, straightforward advice and tools on how to navigate this digital world with your family. We don't expect you to read every page on the site. Each article and section has been designed to be a self-contained reference. However, even if you don't read anything else on the site, we want you to know five things.