Maybe It’s Time You Got A MySpace Account!
I’m constantly amazed at what parents don’t know about their children.
It ain’t like when you and I were kids. When you’re not watching them, your children aren’t just sitting at home in front of the television looking at Leave It To Beaver.
As a public school teacher, I suspect I know quite a bit more about what your kids are doing than you do. What they are actually up to would shock you.
If you’re reading this in the middle afternoon and your child is at home unattended, then he or she might be having sex right at this moment–on your bed! Middle afternoon is statistically when kids have sex most often. Think about it–Mommy and Daddy probably aren’t home.
Or, they might be taking drugs using a neat key chain you bought them at the convenience store down the street. A lot of those baubles you see displayed near the cash register are designed to be taken apart and put back together to make drug pipes. You would never know, you thought that little pink key ring thing your little girl wanted was just some sort of thirteen year old fad. It’s not.
What about when they’re on the computer?
Does your kid have a computer in his room?
I’m not telling you how to parent, (actually, I am) but you might want to re-consider that decision. How much trouble can a twelve year old get into on a computer?
Plenty!
Okay, there’s the problem of not knowing exactly who the person is your child is chatting with in the chat room. Their “friend” could be legit, or he could be a forty year old trucker pederast covered in tattoos–or he could be your neighbor! Child molesters pay good money for information about kids in their neighborhoods–you know, names, ages, that sort of thing.
There are some truly bad people in our world.
Or maybe none of this is happening. Maybe your kid is just posting on her MySpace account, linking with her friends. There couldn’t be any harm in that…could there?
What sparked this post was a caller into a talk radio show who said she had Googled her own name and found some really offensive stuff her own daughter had written about her on MySpace.
She was hurt and confused by what her daughter had done. Her daughter was almost twenty, so it wasn’t like she was twelve and just peeved with mom. Also, the mother and daughter had enjoyed a very close relationship, or at least the mother thought they had.
What’s going on here is a sort of MySpace meets Lord Of The Flies syndrome.
The anonymity and distance of the Internet has always given rise to obnoxious behavior by some individuals–flaming, for instance. Sites like MySpace only aggravate this situation.
It gets worse for younger kids, teens and tweens.
Although you’ve only perhaps read about one of two occurrences, it’s not uncommon on these teen social networking sites for kids to bully each other unmercifully.
I’ve had the extreme displeasure of reading some of the tripe kids say about each other on these sites, references to sexual activity in language that would make even me blush. (That’s hard to do, by the way. I control my vocabulary at home and also at work, but get me together with some of my buddies. Well, we can get quite colorful.)
I would love to know if anyone is doing a study of the psychological damage these sites can cause.
When you’re an adult, a blogger for instance, and someone leaves you a nasty comment you just shrug it off. You know who you are, and you don’t let scum influence how you think about yourself.
Honestly, this is easier said than done even for an adult.
Being a public school teacher, I’m pretty used to not letting vicious people manipulate me and get me off my game by insulting me. I’m naturally pretty self-contained psychologically.
But a child! I don’t know of any thirteen or fourteen year old who can withstand that sort of cruel undermining without registering some long term scaring.
To my mind, it’s not the pederast down the street you need to worry about the most, it’s your kid’s own cruel “friends” who, through the power and anonymity of the Internet get off on belittling their peers.
What’s the solution?
The best one I know of is what we do. Turn the damn thing off.
Just because you and I are web-savvy and spend a lot of time on the Internet does not mean this is a safe place for our children.
I know it’s not for mine!
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