Technology has reshaped the way kids play, think, study and interact with one another. Kids ages 8 to 18 spend more time with media-an astonishing 45 hours per week-than with parents or at school. Kids don't think of technology as a toy or a tool, it just is, like air, according to psychologist, Larry Rosen, PhD. This technology is altering the way we parent. The following are some suggestions to help with parenting issues.
Installing blocking software and keeping Internet access out of your child's room are now basic to responsible parenting. You need to know where your kids are in cyberspace the same way you keep tabs on them in the physical world.
Studies show that parents overemphasize the negative while kids have a far brighter attitude toward the Internet. My Space for example, perfectly suits two key needs of adolescents, to socialize and to hone one's identity. Growing up seeing the Internet as a kind of vast, happy playground, few kids seem to comprehend or care about its viral nature and longevity. Explain to your child the reality that his posts, profiles and pictures will always be there for people to see and may haunt him or her in the future.
The new media are addicting, according to social scientists, so you must set and enforce time limits on use as well as time for unplugged play.
The best way to set realistic boundaries is to familiarize yourself with the sites your child is using. Ask him to show you. Then you can make fair rules and set logical consequences.
Every parent must also decide the right age for their child to have the new "toys" of childhood. You don't have to ban it forever but you also don't need to push it to be a with-it parent.
How this all plays out is anybody's guess. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million and TV took 13 years. The Internet took just five years to involve that many users. My Space took three years and both the IPod and YouTube took only one! Childhood may be changing but the need to guide is eternal.
~Dr. Larry Rosen, PhD
In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics offers suggestions for keeping your kids safe on the internet. Go to www.aap.org for a free download of Family Safety from Windows Live One Care. This download will help you set up your PC for safer browsing and easier supervision of what your children are doing through web based reports.
Helping your teen survive online:
Start young. You have to make the off-line world more attractive and more fulfilling than the online world.
Remove temptations: Take away the keyboard and cell phone at night.
Keep computers in a common area. If they have to be in a bedroom, don't install recording programs and equipment such as a Web camera on the computer.
Check the computer and the cell phone periodically. If your teen knows your watching, he or she is less likely to misbehave.
Beware of dummy sites: Teens often have a MySpace page just for parents and another for themselves. There are some clues: dummy profiles are less likely to be heavily decorated. So are ones where the newest blog postings are four days old.
Take a MySpace or Facebook tour with your child. Visit their profile and their friends' profiles. Ask questions about what you see. If you show your child you can have a rational discussion, it prevents a knee-jerk reaction.
~Candice Kelsey, author of "Generation MySpace: Helping your Teen Survive Online Adolescence" and Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio.