We were told that the brain stops growing when we’re very little. That’s completely false. Our brain doesn’t stop developing until our mid-twenties. More specifically, it develops by areas, and some areas of the brain develop before others. One of the last areas to develop is the prefrontal cortex, and it’s the one that is the control center for logical thought and the understanding the correlation of cause and effect. Let’s call it the common sense area. On the other side of the ring we have the limbic system, the region of the brain involved in emotional judgement, in feeling, processing feelings and responding to them. The limbic area is also one of the early risers in the brain development schedule. So, when proposed with a challenge that demands a quick response and can be described as either fun, dangerous, cool, creepy, or crazy, or simply “mysterious” the limbic system will be one who will make an adolescent give an immediate yes. No would never really be an option there.
I have read quite a bit on the subject while researching for these articles. It turns out that if there is one thing that all social media have in common is a very black and white spectrum on the acquaintance scale. Most have friend/not friend. A few allow family, friends, and acquaintances. But the truth is that this is not how friendships work, there are many degrees of closeness; so what happens? When choosing between adding, and not adding a person to a circle, the starkness of the options is, for teens an extra reason to say, initially, yes to friend requests. Remember, they’re wired for the “act now, fix later if needed” approach.
Most of the time this approach it works out. You can unfriend a person if you don’t like him or her, or if you simply don’t want to continue knowing the; and you can block them or report them if they start harassing you.
But there are times that these new friends come with ulterior motives and find a way to worm their way into kids’ lives to wreak havoc. They are online sexual predators, and statistics are scary: one in every five teen has been contacted by someone requesting sex, one way or another; and of those, only in four told an adult that they had been approached.
We have to understand that this is not something that is going to go away. As a matter of fact, sexual predators (who favor –another statistic- teens under the age of 14) learn from others’ mistakes, from the people who have been caught, and develop new ways of getting through all the time. They use grooming techniques, a systematic approach via chats to befriend their intended victims, manipulating them to become indispensable in the minds of these children and teens; they often set them up against their parents, by learning to always take the kid’s point of view. Their intention over time is to lead the talk towards sexual subjects, with the purpose of obtaining pornographic material and/or meeting with the victim for sexual encounters. After the child has been victimized, they use extortion to force them to keep quiet. It’s one of the ugliest scenarios a parent can envision.
According to law enforcement, there are measures that can be adopted to try and prevent children from becoming exposed this way. Of course, we parents have to walk the thin and often blurry line between giving our children freedom and keeping them safe. This is why I am giving you a summary of the best advice I have seen out there during my research:
1. Set up parental controls so that your children cannot upload new social media apps without you, and only you can set and change passwords.
2. Befriend your kids on ever social media on which they have accounts.
3. Every now and then, run routine checks on their phones and computers. When you do, make sure they’re present, and give them a 5 minute advance warning that you are running the check; this allows them to hide things that they feel that they don’t want you to see, and helps them feel like you are more protecting them and less invading their privacy. Because, let’s be clear, you are, even if it’s for their own good.
4. Tracking software, or internet nannies. There are applications that allow you to follow what your kid is doing online. I don’t agree with their use, but they exist.
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| Dinner in family, minus the electronics. Remember how it was? |
5. Usage locations. It’s a good norm to establish, for the whole household, areas that are OK to text and use computers. Bedroom, bathrooms and the table during mealtimes should be restricted areas; computers should be used out in the open and, if they must be in bedrooms, there should be a usage schedule for them as well.
6. Usage schedules: it’s perfectly acceptable to have a curfew for phone, tablet and computer use. Alarm clocks still exist, use them. Designate a phone and tablet charging area that is off limits after a certain hour. You can also combine schedules and locations into an agreement or written contract with your kid, using a negotiation system that is reviewable yearly, and during special seasons like the summer and winter holidays.
7. Knowledge. You, as parents, are responsible for staying up to date on the technologies that kids are using, as well as the latest social media and jargon. If you don’t know what something means look it up on urban dictionary or google it.
8. Communication. This is the most important aspect, talking to your kids and teens about the risks of social media, explaining to them how there are people that might sound like kids are not, and what are the latest trends in this type of criminal behavior will help them be more alert on their usage of social media, chats, and forums.
9. Trust. You need to trust your kids, and try to find a balance between what keeps your
Ultimately, we need to remember that they are kids. The world is a whole lot different now than it was for us, but they are still just as curious and bound to make mistakes as we were; theirs will just be different, and there is a whole new set of dangers to which most of us weren’t exposed. Try to stay calm, use guidance and advice rather than orders, and you will find that your kid is, for the most part, a reasonable individual.
If you want more information on this subject please don’t hesitate to contact me via email, and feel free to share more information in the comments section below.
In the next entry I will talk about other issues affecting
teens online: bullying, sharing personal information, and sexting.
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