I just saw a very silly article in the paper on how parents can protect their children from bullying in the online world. All right, it wasn’t all silly – “don’t post naked pictures” is a lesson that needs to be learned early. (Hey, and parents, pro-tip, think about your future credibility vis a vis this discussion before you hit post on those adorable naked pictures of your toddler. Also, if you really cannot control yourself, DON’T TAG THE SHOT WITH HIS NAME. Seriously, do you hate him so much that you want him to have no friends in seventh grade?)
The thing that made me snicker uncontrollably was “Stress to your children that they should never physically meet anyone they’ve only become friends with online.”
Really? In 2011, we’re giving this advice with a straight face?
“Don’t meet your online friends in person, son.”
“How’d you and Mommy meet?”
“Match.com and then we hung out in World of Warcraft. Now shut up and eat your peas.”
I admit I’m a little vague on some of the details, because kids don’t come with a user manual. Oh, who am I kidding, that doesn’t matter. I’ve never read user manuals in my life except for when someone is paying me to spellcheck them.
Anyway, manual or not, I’m fairly sure that the point of parenting isn’t just to keep the little demons alive until they can pass on their own genetic material. Wait. Okay, that is the point, but there is a higher moral point to human parenting, which is to equip the little demons with the skills to keep themselves alive, because you can’t always be standing there.
When it comes to meeting online friends in the physical world*, a more reasonable (and ultimately more useful/protective) rule is “Kid, talk to me about meeting online friends and we’ll make a plan together.”
Parents can help their children to understand that people are not always what they say they are (and that sometimes people are what they say they are, but other things as well). Parents can and should teach their children basic safety rules like “Always meet in a public place, and always bring another person with you.” Meetings between elementary aged children should be negotiated between the respective parents. Junior high students should be supervised through the process. If you haven’t equipped a kid to function safely by high school, you don’t even want to know what they’re getting up to.
We must teach our children to safely negotiate a modern world where many people meet and interact online before meeting in person. Sticking your head in the sand and saying “just don’t do it” is a breathtaking abdication of responsibility. How’s that abstinence-only education working out for you?
* Did you see what I did there? Maybe if we taught our kids that the online world IS a real one, and the stuff you say matters, maybe there’d be less bullying.
This is a great article, real. 2011 our kids are going to meet people online, social media is here to stay. Now the parents have to get a bit more involved, they need to know passwords and have access to young childrens internet hangouts. I met my spouse on the internet and my family was skeptical about he’s “realness” and I was in my 20′s.
Really nice essay. I did a lot of writing and thinking about online vs. ‘real’ communities a few years back and one of the things that I thought was interesting and frustrating was exactly the point you make in your footnote. Somehow these online spaces still aren’t being thought of as ‘real’, and that invalidates the emotional and social impacts they have in our lives, and invalidate the communities we grow there. I’m really interested in activities and behaviors that help people bridge their online and ‘real life’ personas, and teaching children from an early age how to integrate those is both hugely important and sadly lacking in our cultural vocabulary right now. I feel like we have yet to develop language and a context for talking about these experiences in a way that doesn’t instantly devalue them or treat them as somehow less, or worse. You can, of course, make the very real argument that there ARE important things missing from virtual communities that are present in physical, location based ones, but that’s not really the point anymore. Virtual communities and virtual lives are here to stay, and how we think about them, contextualize them and value them is, in my opinion, the larger issue now. Especially when it comes to helping young people understand the experiences and communities they develop and are a part of online.
I don’t think there is a lot of sophistication on behalf of the people who worry about this stuff. At least there isn’t in our local community, it’s just cops who don’t use the internet regurgitating what they heard at some seminar. And these seminars tend to stress the absolute worst and pander to scaremongering because it brings up more business.
They also, as with this, conflate real predators with local bullying. Most of the internet bullying I’ve heard of has been real world friends or schoolmates attacking someone online.
I do take exception that children don’t come with owners manuals though
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Owners-Manual-Instruction/dp/1931686238
One of the ways I tend to categorize parents is by their risk tolerance. It seems to me that low risk tolerance of risk-to-children (as opposed to, say, risk-to-money) is pretty widespread through society at the moment, and since we’re all bad at actually evaluating risk…
Numtini – you’re probably right. The source of this ridiculous advice (though to be fair I’ve seen it all over) in this particular case was the leader of a group called “Stop Internet Predators.” They wouldn’t get much funding or support if they were called “Avoiding Internet Predators Is A Matter of Common Sense, Really.”
People with kids need to be… parents.
Parents lead by example, by discipline… not by being one of the mouth-breathers that stand around demanding that their government take care of their kids (protect kids from drugs sex and video games). What, you weren’t there when Billy bought Grand Theft Whore Killer? Oh but you played co-op with them… my bad.
Parents watch what the kids do online. They put measures in place and review where they’ve been. And please, don’t give me that privacy crap, if they’re under your roof, they are STILL on your apron strings — you are STILL responsible.
Parents know where their kids are and what they’re doing. Either they’re in the yard getting exercise, working in the kitchen or laundry room, or even the TV room. After 8PM they are back in their cell for evening lockdown.
But the “stick our head in the sand” approach works so well for sex education. Oh, wait…
Sanya,
A wonderful post. I totally agree. There really isn’t much more to be said on the topic. I hope more than your normal 19 readers take note of it.
I hope anyone posting here who isn’t a parent, and wishes to become one, prints their savvy words out and saves them for later. There are few laugh-so-you-don’t-cry moments for parents better than looking back on the advice you handed you before you had kids and so knew everything about parenting.
Now, that aside, I actually agree with this post completely. “Don’t assume that people online are the same in real life” is the first and most important advice, whether or not you ever plan to meet those people – your kid doesn’t need to meet somebody in person for them to be a stalker, or talk your kid into sending naked pictures via Skype.
When my (older) kids want to meet an online friend, Mom or Dad goes with them, and friend knows that’s what will happen. So far everything’s been fine, because the kind of people who don’t want Mom or Dad to know about the friendship scatter early.
Wonderful piece, Sanya. While important, no helmet, knee pad or Internet security software can replace solid parenting. It’s the common sense that we hand down to our children that serves as their final, most critical line of defence.
Common sense isn’t that common …when you are talking about kids. I personally know of one high school teen who sent in 50 text messages to a girl. Like, he thought he wouldn’t get caught or that it wasn’t stalkerish.
BTW “don’t post naked pictures” is good advice but so is “turn off facial recognition” in Facebook is a more pro tip.