Published in the Democrat and Chronicle on November 17, 2010
An article writen by Stephanie Veale on how to monitor a child or adolescent’s Facebook and texting habits. I am one of the experts interviewed in the story.
Click this link to download the pdf file of the story which also include additional material.
Last year, Myriam Martinez’ fifth-grade daughter requested a Facebook account. Martinez, of Brighton, had no idea how Facebook worked. What was a “Wall,” and what exactly did it really mean to be someone’s friend? How much control did a person have over privacy?
She wasn’t sure, so she set up her own account.
Once she had navigated through the privacy settings and gotten a feel for the Facebook culture, she let her daughter use Facebook through the account she had set up and under close supervision. Her daughter keeps telling her “everyone” at school has an account, but Martinez and her husband stand firm that none of their three daughters have their own account.
“I don’t know what that means, ‘everyone,’ but I know that she wants to friend a lot of people who have Facebook accounts,” says Martinez, who is surprised that so many middle-schoolers have access.
These days – with Facebook, Twitter, texting, blogs, YouTube, streaming television shows and websites with inappropriate content galore – it can seem like cell phones and the Internet are assaulting families from all sides. But the worst thing a parent can do is retreat, says Ed Suk, executive director of the New York branch of the Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
“It’s a very complicated and challenging world of technology that we’re living in right now, and sometimes the best advice for parents is to go back to the basics,” Suk says. “Talk to your kids, set clear guidelines and make sure they have the ability to come to you when they’re experiencing something inappropriate.”
It’s never too early to start addressing Internet safety issues with your children, Suk says. And it’s never too late, either – even though teenagers may be “light years” ahead of their parents in terms of Internet know-how, and it can feel overwhelming to delve into their world.
The good news: There are plenty of resources to help parents navigate the ever-changing, complex Internet landscape. One resource is NetSmartz, an online cyber-safety workshop developed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for parents, teens, children and educators. NetSmartz has a “definitions” page that highlights common Internet terms for parents still learning the lingo; it also has a sister site, NetSmartz411.org, that allows you to “Ask an Expert” if you have a specific question.
The best way to handle Internet and cell phone issues is to make them part of an ongoing conversation with your child, “the same way we have ongoing conversations about lots of things we value as families,” says Dan DeMarle, a local education specialist who includes links to cyber safety resources at www.demarleinc.com.
“Parents need to protect their kids, and they can’t protect them unless they know what they’re doing,” DeMarle says.
We posed some common questions to the experts.
What types of things should I be concerned about?
If your child has an account on a social networking site, such as Facebook or MySpace, he or she can share information freely with people who are friends – or not. Oftentimes, children and teens are Facebook “friends” with people who they don’t know very well, if at all. And some information, including name, school, city, address, phone number and photographs, can be made public to anyone on the Internet. It all depends on the user’s privacy settings. Photographs have become a particularly insidious issue, Suk and DeMarle say. Even innocuous photos can pose a problem if privacy settings aren’t strict enough.
There is also an increasing number of ways for Facebook users and others to disclose their exact location at any given time. Facebook recently came out with the “Places” feature, allowing users to publicize where they are (in the real world) using their smart phone. Cameras and cell phones with built-in GPS capabilities can imprint GPS coordinates on a photograph that has been mobile-uploaded.
And, of course, there are chat rooms, where children and teens can talk to people they do not know.
How can I monitor my child?
Parents should have complete access to their child’s Facebook page, at least during the tween and early teenage years, DeMarle says.
One way to monitor Facebook use and set ground rules is by writing up a contract with your child before you allow him or her to open an account, and say that you will revisit the contract each year, DeMarle says.
“Contracts are easier to enforce because there’s no ambiguity,” he says. “It becomes kind of the third party. You can always argue with your parents, but it’s hard to argue against written words.”
The point at which a teenager can have a secret password depends on a lot of factors and should be a family decision, DeMarle says. Even older teens should have to “friend” their parent on Facebook (and yes, you should be on the site, with your own account, monitoring what you can see and keeping up-to-date on new developments).
Parents should also consider having the family computer in a common area, check histories of all computers regularly and consider blocking or monitoring software.
What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying can take many forms, but DeMarle says it usually happens these days through Facebook or through a popular website called Formspring.me. With Formspring, users have an account and can ask questions of friends, including anonymous questions. So if a teen wants to pick on a classmate, he or she can message the classmate anonymously or post anonymously to that person’s page: “Why did you wear such an ugly dress today?” (or something much worse). The hard part is, there’s no name attached to the insult. Cyberbullying can also happen on blogs, through Instant Messenger or Google Chat, or other websites – basically any place on the Internet where it’s possible to post comments or send messages.
What should I do if it happens to my child?
If you think something is going on, start by finding out exactly what happened. Have your child call up the posts in question and review them, and ask your child to tell you his or her version of events. Keep in mind that the line between bullies and victims often gets blurred, with victims turning into bullies and vice versa at a rapid pace, DeMarle says.
In the moment, you should tell your child not to engage with the bully. The bullied teen should ignore mean-spirited messages, delete offensive comments, and even consider suspending his or her Facebook account until things have settled down, DeMarle says. Help your child think through ways of solving the problem on her own.
If the issue involves children from the same school and it’s spilling over into school time, inform the school, DeMarle says. But don’t expect a uniform response: Some schools are very proactive with cyberbullying issues, and some won’t touch them. This is a problem throughout New York state, Suk says.
“I think schools are struggling with where the boundaries are,” Suk says. “What are the civil rights of kids within school districts, and what are the boundaries? What are appropriate and inappropriate actions for schools to take?” (This spring, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is sponsoring a conference on this very topic.)
If a conflict has escalated to a serious level among children who do not go to the same school, or the school isn’t getting involved, you may need to contact the parents of the other kids, DeMarle says. If any of the cyberbullying rises to criminal levels, for example another teen posting nude pictures of your child on Facebook, then you should call the police.
On the preventive side of things, Myriam Martinez has explained to her young daughters that friendships online should be treated like face-to-face friendships in some ways: Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to someone in person, don’t say mean things, don’t post anything on someone’s Wall that you wouldn’t want on your own Wall. In other ways, you have to be even more careful with Facebook than with real life.
“I tell them that when you share something with someone one on one, no one else hears it,” Martinez says. “But when you post something on a Wall, anyone can see it. Even if it’s just a joke, you’re missing the context on the Internet. You don’t get the whole story. You have to be really careful.”
What are the risks with cell phones?
Teens have a tendency to spend way too much time texting when they should be doing other things, like paying attention in class, doing homework or sleeping, DeMarle said. “Sexting” has gained popularity and the danger is that more kids feel comfortable taking nude pictures of themselves and others, and disseminating them via text (or posting them to Facebook). Too much cell phone time can cause a child to do poorly in school or feel overtired from lack of sleep.
Parents should treat a cell phone just like a computer and have the pass code and set the rules.