8 Things We Should Know About Parenting With Technology
by PlanningQueen on May 24, 2012 in Child Development, Children's Activities
I have had the pleasure of meeting Martine in real life on a number of occasions. She is an inspiring person to be around and I love that her knowledge comes from both her personal experience as a mum and professionally as a counsellor. Martine blogs at The Modern Parent which is all about helping families in the modern world.
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As a parent today we want to protect our kids, keep them safe, encourage their potential, support them through their challenges, provide them with opportunity and nurture their individuality, creativity and strong sense of self. These are all important aspects of parenting that have been around for many years. Today however, the playing field is vastly different. In this world that is changing on an almost daily basis, it is now up to us as parents to ensure that we are keeping up with the game. We need not become technological gurus or suddenly turn into social network junkies, but we do need to become aware.
Below are some examples of the sorts of things that can help us understand. In having some knowledge and perspective, we are better able to help our kids through their journey, encourage communication and provide the guidance that they will still need, despite the relative ease with which they have become immersed in technology and the online world.
1. Kids are confused too
Our kids today are really no different to kids of years gone by. They want to hang out, gossip, flirt, play games, test boundaries and take risks. They want to do all this stuff as part of their search for their place amongst peers and society, just like we did. But today our kids are doing these things in the most public of places. And herein lies their conundrum. They are wanting to be private, but are doing so in a setting that is completely transparent.
2. You won’t control everything they see.
Despite your outlay for the latest filtering software and security updates, and even an attempt to hover over their shoulder, your kids will more than likely see things that you don’t want them too…and sometimes things that make you squirm, shudder and even feel sick. No matter your parental controls at home, and no matter how tight a reign you hold over the family computers, our kids can log in to the net almost anytime and anywhere. You cannot control other kids, what they look at, what devices they carry and what they show to your kids. Obviously there will be many that will get through avoiding such exposure, but there will be many more that wont.
3. The messenger can get shot.
Sexting and bullying online are real problems with very real consequences. If you are seen to forward on an offending message or picture you can be just as liable as the original perpetrator.
4. They will find a way around.
Parents often prevent their kids from setting up Facebook accounts to avoid the challenges that go with it. But kids will find a way around. There will always be another social networking site they can find to communicate. Many unsuspecting parents have let their kids join up with Instagram and the like to pursue their love of photography and all things creative, only to find that there is great scope for chatting, making new connections and extending their social network.
5. Ipods and xbox’ can be chat sites too.
Just because your kids don’t have a mobile or phone connection doesn’t mean they are not chatting with both friends and potentially people unknown. Kids with a basic ipod touch or game controller can use any wireless connection within reach to connect with people. I learnt this when I heard my son giggling at night with his ipod touch in hand. Upon investigation I discovered that he was messaging his friend from a device I thought he was using only to listen to music.
6. Your kids can be tracked.
Whilst there are apps and devices that can make it easy for parents to learn the whereabouts of their kids, it also means that people you may not want knowing their whereabouts can easily discover their exact location. Geolocators can let anyone know where your child is heading, what time they will be there and who, if anyone, they will be there with. You can turn these off your mobile devices, but research suggests that the majority don’t, and in fact many are often ‘checking in’ to places to advertise their exact location.
7. There is no real delete.
The photos you upload and the words that you write can be accessed for at least the next 7 years. What your kids write at 14 can be very different to the persona they want to portray at 22. Talk often about the “staying power” of anything that is online. Even if you later go and delete something you regret saying or uploading, there is a good chance that it may have already been forwarded on, shared or copied.
8. What you say can become your resume.
There are companies that exist solely to trawl through the net and gather information on people (and potentially our kids) to give to potential employers or to those deciding on tertiary entrance. Your online persona in effect becomes your digital resume. Whilst you may refuse such access to whatever they find, others may be more reluctant to hire someone who they feel may have something to hide.
Some of these points and the many stories that we hear can certainly be frightening and often overwhelming for parents. But as long as we continue to ask questions, seek out knowledge, and retain and nourish a connection with our kids, we will be better equipped to continue to support and guide our children as we all endeavor to embrace this new world.
Martine is a mother of 5 boys who runs a family, parent and youth counselling service in conjunction with her blog The Modern Parent. With a background in secondary teaching, a Masters in Counselling and the personal experience of running a busy household, Martine successfully combines the personal and the professional to help us find more joy and less stress in our daily lives. She has a passionate interest in helping families to safely navigate the modern world of parenting, with a particular interest in the role that technology plays in the lives of our children and our families. Martine is also available for speaking presentations and workshops to help us better understand this dynamic and all encompassing new world. You can find her at her blog themodernparent.net
What are your biggest challenges with kids and technology?
18 comments...read them below or add one
Thank you for this article Martine. I understand kids will see stuff other places, but do you recommend using parental controls in the home?
> Hi Barbara, I think absolutely you can use whatever controls you have at your means. Certainly from an early age this can mean time limits, playing whilst they are in your view, security filters on computers etc. If you can set up some good habits early and retain as much control as you can for longer then you have a better chance of instilling some healthier practices. It is more about being aware that there is much out there they will see that you can’t control so keeping those lines of communication open is paramount.
My 11 year old daughter desperately wants me to let her set up a Facebook profile. Nearly all her friends have it. I am trying to make her wait until she is 13. Is that the right thing to do?
Hi Lisa, this is a difficult area for parents to navigate as there is so much pressure to be like everyone else. It is a bit like being the only child not allowed to go to the party or hang out at the shops after school. This is their social ‘hangout’ now and for kids this age they are heading into the “friends are everything’ stage. I personally have said to my children not until they get to high school and are the legal age, but I think it can be very dependent on the child’s personality and responsibility online. Certainly for younger children I suggest if you are going to let them set up an account that you have their login and password so you can keep track of what they are saying, what is being said to them and with whom they are talking. Its ok to set up your own rules about usage etc. Again I think it is important to keep talking to them about what is and is not appropriate to be said online. Good luck Lisa
My year 10 has a laptop she uses that is provided by the school she attends. The students were made to read and sign a contract in order to get the laptop. It is monitored by the school through the educatuin department and school computer technicians. A couple of times a week i check what she has been doing on it which allows more of an insight into how she is using it. By doing this i have taken away some of the concerns i had about using technology and also have found that the trust i have in her has showed that respect is still there even if the computer has her attention. Thanks for the useful tips that you provided.
That’s great Deanna, it is so important they respect the technology as well as themselves and us. I think contracts can be a great idea for households as well. It is good to keep them accountable for what they are doing online and also opens up discussions about the sorts of things that are acceptable.
Do you have any advice on time limits? The biggest challenge with technology is making my 13 year old boy get off it. It is the source of most of our arguments.
Another contentious issue for many parents Trisha and it is one that needs to be dealt with early on so they get used to having boundaries and limits so they are better able to regulate their online time as they get older. With my boys when they started to be on too long and then whinging when they were asked to get off we had to go back to the beginning and ban everything for a few days and when we reintroduced the games we had much stricter boundaries in place. They now know what it is like to be without it altogether so they are much better at complying with the rules. At the moment it is 30 minutes each on a weeknight. (that is for games, they can listen to music or do football dream teams etc for longer) The weekends are a bit more flexible but they are busy with sport and other things so it isn’t as much of an issue. It it all about what will work for your family and discussing it together to come up with an agreement you can both work with.
I am not very familiar with Facebook, my daughter has it and I saw recently a friend put up photos of them at a pool party. My daughter says she can’t take it down, but I don’t think the photos should be there, can they be removed?
This is the problem with friends tagging you in photos Donna. Your daughter cannot take the photo down but she can remove the tag which is what highlights to her friends that she is in the photo. If she goes to the photo she can select remove tag and the photo will no longer show up on her Facebook wall but the photo will still be on the wall of whoever uploaded the photo in the first place. The only other option is to ask her friend to remove it. Another reason we need to be careful when people are taking our photos.
Thanks so much for taking the time to give such detailed and informative responses Martine – I am learning heaps!
> My pleasure
We have some rules regarding technology and one of them is “if you wouldn’t say it to their face don’t say it in cyberspace” and my son is not allowed to accept people he doesn’t know on his ps3 network
Some great rules and of course we know it is much easier to say things online than to someones face, so thats a great thing to teach.
I thought this article was great, and really interesting to read readers’ questions and comments too. I think all parents have pretty much the same concerns about technology.
I’d like to offer a different perspective on the point you make in item 1: “kids are wanting to be private, but doing so in a setting that is transparent”. In my experience and from my observation of my teenager and her friends over the past few years, they actually are not that private a generation at all. They are very public about their feelings and their image. I think us parents were a much “shyer” generation as teens. And I think this is the big issue with Facebook – that they are actually quite happy to put all this stuff out there publicly, and we don’t know how that is going to work out for them.
Of course, they still want to keep their lives private from mum and dad
Thanks Rachel, and I agree that they are very public in their interactions but I guess what I was saying was that intrinsically they would like to do a lot of things in private but this is the only outlet they have, and thus they then start doing everything in public. Often when kids say things online, they are really only in their heads thinking of a handful of people they are wanting to connect with but forgetting that they have 1000 plus ‘friends viewing it. Yes certainly many are aiming their interactions to their wider circle of ‘friends’ but there are also many that are not. And hence you are right we end up with a very public generation but I am not so sure that they all intend it to be this way. Thanks for your perspective, I guess like a normal playground, there will always be those that want to stand out and those that don’t.
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