This week is Cyber Behavior Awareness Week (yes that is a real thing). I was preparing to write a new post for this week when I thought about a post I published about a year ago on this blog. I think that the info within this post is still very relevant even though the opening story might be a little dated. Parents, please take the time to read or re-read this, I think it is a good start to become the Digital Age Parent that you need to be. After you work through this stuff but still feel like you cold use some “back-up” in monitoring your students online behavior I encourage you to go check out http://www.Zabra.com.
Last Wednesday the local high school in my town received a threat through a social media site. The threat was for Friday, Dec. 21st, the one week anniversary of the Newtown shooting. It was also the last day of classes for the school district before the two week Christmas break. While I am sure there were more threats made at schools all over the nation, it was the reaction of my community that caught my attention.
Once the threat had been found the local police began an immediate investigation into the source and legitimacy of the threat. While I am not sure of all the work and steps involved in the investigation I strongly believe that those who serve our community as police officers and detectives do not take their job lightly and I do not believe they took this threat lightly either. This is their home too and I believe that they will do all that they can to insure its safety. The police department Thursday morning released a statement that I thought was well worded and contained the information that the community needed, no more and no less. (You can read the whole statement here- http://www.midlothian.tx.us/index.aspx?nid=17) It basically said that upon investigation it was determined that the threat was not serious and that classes would resume as scheduled on Friday with an increased police presence.
While I found this statement to be comforting, knowing that the students that I work with will be safe when they go to school on Friday, many others did not. In fact many local parents were outraged at the actions, or lack thereof, by the city. I heard people claim that school should be canceled out of safety concerns. I heard parents exclaim that schools need to do a better job at protecting its students. The fact is that Friday came and went and sure enough, nothing happened. The city had done its job and had concluded that there was no danger to its students and that life would go on. The city did its job and people complained, but the true complaint needs to be to parents.
Parents,
When is the last time that you logged into your child’s social networking profiles (facebook, tweeter, instagram, blogs, myspace…I hear it is coming back?) When is the last time that you looked into the things your child is posting about or commenting on? Have you ever looked at their friend list or their followers? If not, then I suggest you read on. If you are a parent who is in the know in regards to your child’s social networking presence I suggest you read on to see if there is anything you may consider changing. While I do not claim to be perfect in any of the following, I do believe that this list will at least get you thinking about the world of social media and your child’s involvement in it. Here is a quick list of things you might want to consider practicing as a Digital Age Parent.
1) Know the Lingo
2) Create an account
3) Have “The Talk”
4) Don’t abuse the power
5) Real Relationship Wins
Know the Lingo
As a parent you might feel like the world of language is change faster than you can keep up, and the truth is… IT IS! As our culture becomes more dependent on social media, the demand for new social jargon increases. As new “apps” are developed so are new definitions. As a parent it is important that you understand the things your kids are saying. You need to know what it means to “hashtag” and “tweet.” You need to understand why your student is taking a random picture of a butterfly and then spending a few minutes editing it before they “tag” their friend in it. Knowing the lingo will help you as a parent understand what it is that is motivating your student in the world of social media and will also allow you to pick up on emotional “red flags” in their everyday conversations.
Create an Account
How do you as a parent expect to know what is going on in the life of your teen unless you are plugged into the life of your teen. It is important that you as a parent have an account on the social media outlets that your children do. You need to be familiar with the sites and understand how they work and what tools and privacy settings are available. This is important for the next suggestion “The Talk.” Having an account is great, but it will not really be of any major help unless you are a friend/ follower of your teen. This is where conflict seems to arise for some parents. A simple request to your student may be all it takes to become a friend or follower, but sometimes it becomes a control issue. Understand that some teen will see this as you trying to impose on their life and their privacy. But the truth is it is you trying to understand what they are going through. Approach this with an open mind and listen to you student if they seem resistant to having you follow them or be their friend. Being a friend or follower is the least invasive way to know what your student is posting or tweeting. The information that they release to the world will be at your fingertips and it will allow you to see a side of your student that you might not get to hear from. But don’t start making demands for your student to delicate content just yet; keep reading these suggestions (“Real Relationship Wins”).
Have “The Talk” (not that talk)
This will be the suggestion that most parents will cringe at and will dread, much like that other “talk.” I strongly suggest that you know the log in and password information for your student’s social media accounts. This conversation will most likely be met with some resistance and that is to be understandable. Remember, YOU ARE THE PARENT, most likely you paid for the computer or phone that they are using, you pay for the internet or data plan they are accessing so why should you not have access to what they are doing with YOUR Service. I have had too many parents in the past talk with me about how to monitor their child’s social networking only to tell me that they cannot force their student to give up the information. While I hope you do not need to go to this extreme, you can always turn it all off. They do make phone call only plans for cell phones, and computers are able to block social media sites form being accessed. Again, I hope that your student is not resistant to this point, but remember the tools that you have available and use them if needed. If your student is overly resistant to giving you login information, it might be safe to assume they have something on their site that they DO NOT want you to see or know and that should be a concern of yours.
Ps. Once you have this info, be sure to watch the activity that is taking place on your students site. If you notice that what was once a page with multiple updates and post a day and is now only updated every couple of days, you might want to check in to see if your student has created another account that you do not have access to. If this happens, you may need to take additional steps to becoming a digital age parent.
Don’t Abuse the Power
Just because you have the log in information does not mean that you need to spend all your available time in your students account. In fact, that is not the purpose at all. The real power in having the log in info is that your teen knows you have the login info. There is power in simply being your students “friend/ follower” as well, as they will know that “if I post this my parents are going to see this…” The fact that you have the log in info will always be in the back of your students mind and may help in deterring online behavior that they may have otherwise done without thinking about it. And that is the key point! The goal of all of this is to encourage your student to think about what they are posting online for the world to see. Teens have a hard time distinguishing what is appropriate for their online presences because they feel that it does not really affect them as a person. But once a real person with some sort of authority is paying attention, that mind set seems to shift a little and they just might think twice before posting that picture from the weekend. This does not mean that you never login. I suggest that you log in with your student at time, don’t tell them before hand, just call them into the kitchen and sit with them while you log into their account. This will remind them that “oh yeah, they can see everything I am doing” and might remind them to think. I would suggest that you never remove anything or change anything while you are on your teens account (unless it is something that might cause immediate danger or harm to your teen.) If you see something that you do not like and that you want to see gone, talk about it. Find out why it is on the account, what your teen was thinking when they put it there. Listen to the reasoning, but don’t let it change your mind. You must stand firm on what you see as appropriate social media content and what is not.
Real Relationship Wins
While I have given you more than enough information to think about I want to leave you with one truth that will never change regardless of what age we live in. Real Relationship will always be the vital piece in parenting. It is great to be a facebook friend or a tweeter follower, but you must always remember to be a parent first. Take time to be present in your kid’s life. Listen to them when they talk and participate in the things that they enjoy. Let them know that they are your child and that their well-being is what is most important to you. If you have a relationship that is healthy and you invest into, then chances are you will not need to worry about the social media sites, because they will tell you they’re feeling before they tell the world. It is not the responsibility of your local police or school system to protect your child, it is yours. Yes, it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a parent to build a home. Please, don’t allow your child to turn to the world of social media to find identity, help them identify themselves. That is your Challenge Today… Impact Tomorrow.
-Steven
stevenadair 