Moms Guide to Technology

Do your kids have a friend named Anna Creamer?

This Anna Creamer has a lot of Facebook friends: 1233, down from 3k, since Creamer appears to be a fraud.  I would never guess from the profile of a cute little kid, in beauty pageant attire.

Hundreds of Anna Creamer’s friends go to the same high schools and colleges as our kids.  I’ll admit I didn’t know anything about the mystery until I read The Ravine, a high school magazine.   Where the student journalist found she was friends with hundreds of kids in their school, and nobody actually knew her.

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I drove by the playground the other evening.  It was empty.  No kids on the swings, the monkey bars nor ‘shirts v skins’ on the basketball court.  Who took the kids off the playground?

It was after dinner, the time when parents are winding down, preparing for the next day. Kids don’t just run off to the play with friends.  Today’s mom can’t say, “be home by dark”, like our moms did.  Concern for their safety took the kids off the playground.

Let’s think of social media as the new playground where young people go to interact and develop social skills.  Let’s help them develop skills, like you did when you showed them to pump their knees to make the swing ‘go’.

Be in the space so you know what’s happening.  But like the playground, it’s bad form for mom or dad to step in on every kid interaction.  They’ll never be safe to go it alone.

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If you work with kids and are not on Facebook, it’s a mistake.

Teens live in a digital world.  Most adults who have not stepped into that world hold back because:   It’s too hard & I’m too busy OR Professional protection.  It’s not hard, it doesn’t have to be time consuming if you just set aside an hour each day.  And it won’t ruin your career if you do it right.

Learning to work out social norms is a natural part of coming of age.  Those natural social interactions are happening in a digital way now.  It doesn’t change the need for role models to provide guidance, support and encouragement.  I heard a speaker last week who made a compelling case that kids are losing access to caring, supportive and guiding adults.  Despite what you hear on TV, the online world is NOT only molesters and freaks. But it needs more caring adults & role models.

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