Parents: By Now, Your Children Have Already Read This Article

By Mark Hoerrner

You’ve mastered e-mail, and you think you are keeping up with your teen’s use of technology. Wrong. Teens think of e-mail as a dinosaur—so slow. Instead, they IM (instant messaging) on their computers and text messaging on their cell phones. Use the phone to talk? That’s so 1980s. Welcome to the world of "media multi-tasking," the term scholars have given to children’s use of two or more forms of media simultaneously. Parents just call it one big headache.

A recent article by Matt Goldberg in Yahoo! Internet Life stated that 74% of online teens have used IM. It’s fast, and it can involve a seemingly limitless number of participants. Forget the party line feature on the phone.

Kids are having the same conversations we had at their age; they’re just done electronically. Goldberg reported in 2001 that 17% of teens had asked someone out through IM, and 13% issued an electronic "Dear John" letter to end a relationship. Some of their conversations aren’t like the ones we are used to, however, and that’s where the headache really begins.

Message boards, IM, and chat rooms are stellar forms of communication and are, in fact, the heart of most of the current technology in online learning environments at colleges. The downside is that there’s no way to identify the person on the other end of the message. How does your teen know he’s chatting with a 17-year-old male from Savannah with the IM name "Wintercloak"? Clearly, "Wintercloak" could be a 50-year-old with manipulative intentions. It could also be a classmate spreading vicious rumors based on supposedly private online conversations.

Online communication could be used to open up your children’s eyes to new people and interesting ideas. But it could also bully your child, defame your child, or take advantage of your child’s naivety. Parents can’t hear even one side of an IM conversation, so it is more challenging to know who your child is talking to—and what they are talking about—with these "strangers."

There’s a misconception that children who are made victims by online assailants are forced into a vehicle and carted off, said Trevor Shaw, director of Academic Technology for Dwight Englewood School in New Jersey. "The truth is quite the opposite," he said. "Most victims of online predators go willingly at first with their abductors. They feel safe because this stranger was able to build rapport with them over time."

The methods online predators will use are varied, but one common theme seeks to pick up where parents and friends have left off in the life of a child. Empathy, a virtual shoulder to cry on and joy over the child’s personal triumphs are all set to build a sense of security between the predator and child. At this point, the child erroneously believes he or she "knows" the predator and can be influenced by the predator in numerous ways. Predators, we must remember, aren’t just individuals. Hate groups have elaborate websites and chat rooms designed to lure young people to their cause.

Parents must understand that simply blocking access is not only encouraging deceit but just putting a band-aid on the problem. The first step in ensuring the safety of children on the Internet is knowing what a child is doing on the Internet. In a recent Canadian study conducted by the Media Awareness Network, 71% of adults said they knew where their children were going on the Net, although 38% of children said their parents had no idea which sites they visit. Moreover, more than 30% of the children surveyed said they actively erased the history file in their browser to throw parents off the trail.

Experts say role-playing with children is a good idea. If your child reads a type of message, how should she respond? When should he tell you about messages he’s received or seen? Why can’t you trust people you meet on the Internet? Talk frankly with your children before they enter the virtual world and make sure the computer they use is in a frequently used common area of the house, not their bedrooms.

Like any aspect of parenting that involves electronic resources—whether film, television or Internet—the key to success is constant parental involvement. This is not a privacy issue with children, but a situation calling for open, honest discussion about the consequences of their actions. Sure, they think we are outdated and obsolete, because we still enjoy face-to-face communication. As a wise parent once told a web-slinging teen in a popular comic book, "With great power comes great responsibility." We may not be parents to Spiderman, but the truism still holds. The more we help our children understand their role in the physical and social structure of the world, the safer they will ultimately be.