The Little League World Series is winding down and we are closing in on the end of summer. Kids will be heading back to school and this Friday will bring us the first Friday night football games.

Speaking of, Webb Weekly Live and Cable Sports Live are back this year to bring you two great games every week. Be sure to head to Facebook and webbweeklylive.com to check out the games. This week we’ve got Gary and Babe bringing you Williamsport and Central Mountain and Paul McGinn and Paul Bo (Paul2?) will be heading to N. Schuykill to call the Loyalsock game. Both games kick off at 7 p.m., with pre-game starting at 6:50 p.m.

As all the tiny humans head back to school, remember to be careful out there. Kids aren’t great at paying attention so make sure you are being extra attentive at corners, near schools and just in general.

Parents, please remind your little ones to be extra aware. Maaaaybe consider glancing up from their phones every now and again. At the very least, let’s keep the volume low enough to hear what’s going on around them.

I always feel like back to school is a good time to remind parents about phone/social media safety.
We live in a world where bullying runs rampant. Kids these days don’t even seem to try and be discreet about it. So make sure your kids know where to go to find help if they find themselves being bullied, or see someone else being bullied.

Let them know they can always come to you, or another trusted adult. Let them know that teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators can always help too.

Most schools have developed a zero-tolerance policy regarding bullying, but since we live in such a digital age, kids can be walking around with bullies in their ‘pocket’.

Please make sure that you are ‘friends’ with your kids on Facebook and ‘following’ them on Instagram and Twitter. It’s so much easier for kids to be bullied by faceless screen names. It is also important that you have the usernames and passwords to these accounts. It may seem like an invasion of privacy, but these social media tools aren’t their diaries. Checking up on their online and text messaging activities is an easy way to cut potential bullying — and other less-than-appropriate activities — off at the pass.

You are paying for your child’s phone. And they are living under your roof. Therefore you are the keeper of the gate. It only takes one bad decision to cause a world of trouble for your child, so make sure that you are paying attention to what they are doing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If your kid is under the age 17, I highly recommend just saying no to Snapchat. I just think there is a lot of potential for bad decisions to be made on that app. If you are unfamiliar, Snapchat is an app that allows the user to send pictures and videos to other users, however, the person receiving the message can only view the pic/video for 30 seconds before the message is automatically deleted — or at least that’s the idea. The problem comes in that kids think that the pictures are gone forever — but much like anything you post online — nothing is gone forever. Thanks to screen capturing those photos and videos could come back to haunt you for a Very. Long. Time. I think that generally speaking, tween and teens lack impulse control, which makes this a particularly dangerous app.

That lack of impulse control is the exact reason parents and guardians need to be extra vigilant regarding kids’ use of phones and social media.

Be safe out there everyone!