We intercepted a note today. It was lying with haphazard innocence on the kitchen table amongst magazines and opened mail that was waiting to be thrown out.
What I read, I assumed was written by one of my husband’s high school students which he intercepted and confiscated. No child of mine would have written about video chatting on Skype with a boy who asked to see her boobs and even though he is a “perv”, she still thinks “he’s hot”. And no friend of any of my children’s would have lol’ed at that situation.
But it was.
When I was growing up, notes were passed, brought home and left as evidence on bedroom floors or in pockets of dirty jeans. Notes that alluded to other notes that were passed by a crush or a phone call with heavy panting and promised touches.
Things are WAY too different now.
The technology age is in full swing and it’s dragging our children along with it. Video chat(Skype), sexting, texting, youtube, facebook, twitter. Which, ironically and humorously, none of those words are recognized by spell check yet.
Our kids are exposed to too much burden that comes along with too much technology. Because, teens want to be and feel accepted. So they do stupid things. No matter how diligent we are, there is so much that our kids are exposed to, the minute we turn our back. With technology, particularly social media, it’s getting harder to protect and somewhat shelter them.
It’s taking its toll.
Suicides.
Violation of privacy.
Broken hearts via Facebook status.
And many more emotional and physical travesties.
Facebook chat roulette and skype , really, are the two of most potentially dangerous social media outlet for our kids. It’s private. If you lift up your shirt and show me your tits, no one will ever know. It’s between the two of us.
Until it’s all over Facebook as a captured screen shot that’s name tagged.
And the shit-storm begins thundering in.
Our situation has happy ending.
We spoke with our daughter about the note and about video chatting. She told us that the minute he asked her to expose herself, she clicked off. She wants nothing to do with that type of behavior. I’m proud of her. She has a good head on her shoulders.
What about the kid that would have exposed herself? Or himself?
How are we supposed to protect those kids from the type of guy my daughter came into contact with? Or worse?
We can’t monitor the things they do, 24 hours a day. They need some privacy and respect. They also need to be able to feel like we trust their behavior, unless given reasons otherwise.
However, we need to be involved enough to know who they are hanging out with, whose parents we can rely on for discreet conversation and, our kids should have a little parental fear.
With technology being open 24 hours a day and the need to get at least 6 hours of sleep is very strong, precarious situations are missed. The potential for major trouble happens when the parent’s lights go out for the night and the monitor in the kids room is awakened.
Aside from limiting internet access…
What’s the answer?
Is there even an answer?
Because, with social media, there doesn’t seem to be any haphazard innocence.
This is a tough one. We have two computers in our house and the rule is they both stay downstairs in the common area and no one is allowed to delete the history – so everyone can see where everyone’s been. It’s not a perfect system by any stretch – because as you said, as parents we have to sleep sometime and history (despite the rule) can be deleted. All we can do is talk to our kids, and talk some more. And then pray.
Gigi´s last blog post ..Sometimes you win-sometimes you lose- but in the end its how you behave
Ugh. I hate this part of parenting. Unbeknownst to my children, their computers have keyloggers.
Because N is a hacker and an over-protective step-parent.
We don’t read everything they type, but let’s just say there is programming in place that alerts us to words/phrases being used.
Except with video. Because it’s all verbal.
And? Now our kids are surfing the ‘net at friends’ houses. Without our vigilance.
So scary. All you can do is talk with them and hope.
Jill´s last blog post ..Years Not Long
You’ve done a great job, mom – that’s a responsible kid.
I used to think it was important for parents to do everything possible to protect their children from this kind of thing. Now, I think all you can do is keep them informed, explain to them what your expectations are and what the consequences will be if they don’t meet those expectations, and then be consistent and vigilant. The rest is up to someone at a higher pay grade…
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I think the only way is to do everything you can at home to keep them safe–limit internet access, talk to them about the dangers of life online, give them the tools to recognize a bad situation if ever they’re in it–and then hopefully when they’re out in the world, they’ll have enough sense to stay out of trouble. I fully intend to read all my kids’ emails and facebook stuff, if they keep journals I’ll read those too. I don’t even feel a little bit bad about it; I’d read anyone’s journal to keep my babies safe.
Alexis´s last blog post ..someone will always suffer
All you can do is help give them the tools to get through life and then hope for the best.
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