Dr. Alan Dienstag

The explosive growth of facebook as a medium for teenage interaction has changed the landscape of adolescence and presented parents with new variations on the age-old themes common to parents of teenagers.

What are they doing?

Are they ready for that?

Is it safe-appropriate-normal?

How can I have more (or any) control over this?

What if….?

If you are lying in bed at night agitated and asking yourself these questions,  know that you are not alone and that your discomfort is normal.  Parenting a teenager is not an inherently comfortable circumstance.

While there are no shortage of voices who insist that THE WORLD IS A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS PLACE THAN IT USED TO BE!!  it is better not to take this too seriously.  First because it is demonstrably untrue, but more importantly because it will surely make you more anxious than it is helpful to be.  Facebook is a relatively new phenomenon but the challenges it presents to parents of teenagers are not new.  They revolve around how to manage your child’s growing independence within the context of three factors:

1. Your own discomfort with the transition that makes it impossible to directly supervise your children in the way that you used to.
2. Their (developmentally normative) lack of good judgment.
3. The very real dangers that exist in the unsheltered world they are entering.

As a practical guide I have defined 4 stages of facebook access for managing your teens access to this medium and promoting the development of responsible Internet behavior.  First some general principles and suggestions to keep in mind:

• You are the gatekeeper of your family’s home network and Internet connectivity.  This means that the password is in your hands and stays there.  You can turn it on and turn it off as needed and should.
• The earlier you begin working on this with your children, the better.   Fourth or Fifth grade is a good time. If you wait until high school, creating rules and expectations will be much harder.
• Every family should have a sign up in the room or rooms where computers live that says DON’T DO ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET THAT YOU DO NOT WANT THE WHOLE WORLD TO KNOW.  Frame this, keep it visible, and do not let it disappear.  A family I worked with organized a contest with a substantial prize for the kids in the neighborhood who could create the most attractive version of this sign.  It’s a great idea.  Do that once a year. 

Here are the stages:

Stage I:  No private use of internet/facebook should be allowed at this stage.  All Internet use must take place in public areas of the house.  Regular parental supervision is required.  If facebook is permitted a parent must have password and free access to the child’s page.

Stage II:  This stage involves a graduation to increased Internet independence.  Explicit ground rules should be discussed and agreed to.  Check out this link to the common sense media website  for sample family media agreements. Take the time to complete one of these with your children. Parents should have the facebook password and the teenager must agree to random periodic checks of the page.

Stage III:  If all is going well, reaffirm agreement above with the change that the parent has access but will not go on the facebook page without notice.   This is the “junior license” stage of Internet independence.

Stage IV:  Graduation to private and fully independent access. 

I have avoided putting an age range on these stages because the focus should be on supervision, independence and behavior, and because no two children are alike.  But as a rule it is safe to say that all grade school children who are online belong in Stage I.  Stage II would be appropriate for the average middle school child with III and IV belonging roughly to the high school years.  But the stages should not be tied to an age or a grade. They should reflect the achievement of a certain level of competence and responsibility.  

Treat these stages as milestones that must be passed and which confer special privileges on your children.  Make it positive.  Celebrate the graduation in some nice way that makes it count.  This strengthens the commitment they have made to be good Internet citizens.  Do not hesitate to regress back to earlier stages or shut down access if necessary. 

Remember that this is a work in progress.  They crawl, then they walk, then they run.   But they don’t do this without falling and sometimes getting hurt and sometimes scaring the hell out of their parents.