We recommend that all
adults who wish to keep their family safe online and with media consider making
the following commitment. While we do not believe it is helpful to be legalistic
or too rigid, we do believe that there is power to making and signing covenants.
The goal of this covenant is to establish boundaries to help keep a family safe
in the information age.
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Commitment to
Media Sobriety: avoiding all forms of media addiction, including
avoiding pornography, gaming addiction, chat addiction, television addiction
or any form of online or media addiction that is damaging to relationships.
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Commitment to
Protect Children Online: including installing Internet filtering
software, requiring children to use and taking additional steps for online
safety including having all children in the family sign an online safety
covenant.
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Commitment to
Protect Children from All Second Hand Smut: keeping any movies, games,
channels, magazines, books and music that you use that may be inappropriate
for children out of their reach. This may include locking these materials in
a safe place if necessary.
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Commitment to Get
Educated on Online and Media Safety: become knowledgeable about media
and online safety issues and aware of new challenges that may emerge as
technology and popular culture change.
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Commitment to
Appropriate Communication: including maintaining appropriate boundaries
in communication with others online whether through e-mail, chat, instant
message, talk, video, blogs or any other form of media. A good guideline is,
if something would be inappropriate in communication with someone in person,
then it is inappropriate online.
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Commitment to
Avoid Online Affairs: commit to avoid online affairs. A good guideline
is if you would not go to a level of emotional depth and intimacy in
communication with someone face-to-face in person, then you should not go to
that level of depth online - an online affair is still an affair.
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Commitment to
Recovery: to enter recovery and sign the
Media
Sobriety Covenant for Adults in Recovery if I am not able to maintain these
commitments and maintain media sobriety.
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Commitment to
Supporting Others in Recovery: If I am in relationship with someone who
is in recovery from pornography or other media addiction, I am committed to
not making decisions that might expose them to second-hand smut;
specifically, I will keep any potentially triggering movies, channels,
games, magazines or other media out of reach of the person in recovery. If I
show a pattern of enabling my partner in their addiction, I will seek
individual and/or couples counseling to deal with my part in any family
patterns.
We agree to follow the
above commitments.
