Technology is supposed to make parenting easier. Key words: supposed to. Because a story out of Cincinnati, Ohio, reminds us parenting in the digital age is anything but easy. Parents of a 10-month-old baby were shocked to hear a man's voice coming out of their baby monitor. The device had been hacked by a man who was screaming at the infant!
Mom Heather Schreck was awakened by the strange noise, and when she grabbed her cellphone to check on the baby, she noticed the camera was moving around ... but she wasn't moving it. A voice was screaming, "Wake up baby, wake up," and when dad Adam ran into little Emma's room, the voice coming through the monitor switched to a stream of obscenities.
So much for the baby monitor as a means to sleep a little easier when you're a parent, huh?
The Schrecks' creepy ordeal isn't the first time hackers have managed to get into a child's bedroom with some digital manipulation. A similar baby monitor ordeal shocked the nation last August.
Nor is it the first time parents have dealt with technology meant to make it easier to be a mom and dad in 2014. Every time you turn around, some newfangled gadget is being recalled because parents aren't using it correctly.
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And more parents than ever are confessing to being befuddled by the very technologies that are now present in our everyday lives. In a recent survey, as many as two in five parents say they've turned to their KIDS to help them figure out modern technology.
Not a situation you want to find yourself in, folks. How do you protect your kids from possible issues out there if they know more than you? It's always shocking when a parent confesses they didn't even know their child could do this, that, or the other thing on a particular gadget because the kid knows MORE than Mom and Dad! We're supposed to be in charge, not the other way around.
So what's a parent to do? Well, for starters, playing the "I just can't keep up game" is unacceptable. If you bring technology into your home, you are responsible for knowing how to use it ... and how to keep your kids safe from it.
If you can't do that, maybe you should stick to the old-school methods of parenting.
It turns out the Schrecks' baby monitor, the Foscam IP Camera, had a known firmware vulnerability. The manufacturer had released an update to fix it, but the couple hadn't done said update. They may not have invited that hacker into their kids' bedroom, but they left the door open.
And that's what you're doing when you bring technology home that you aren't prepared to handle: leaving the door open for something to go wrong ... and potentially hurt your kids.
What sort of gadgets have made your life easier as a parent? Do you feel like you know everything there is to know about them?
Image via Nana B Agyei/Flickr