Internet Socializing

INTERNET SOCIALIZING:
TIPS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PARENTS

By Mark J. Kline, Psy.D.

Increasing numbers of elementary school-aged children are socializing on the internet. Using instant messaging, email, chat rooms, and other techniques, they can communicate with school friends as well as strangers. Unfortunately, parents are often unaware of this “virtual social life” until trouble begins. To avoid problems keep the following in mind:

1. Internet socializing can be like any other unsupervised gathering.

It may involve harassment and foul language, scapegoating, bullying, teasing, and pranks. Some of this is in good humor, but children can easily feel hurt and ganged up on.

2. Internet Socializing can also be unlike traditional socializing.

The “remote” nature of online communication means that children typically don’t see or hear each other while “chatting.” The lack of non-verbal cues can encourage inappropriate behavior and misunderstandings.

Children may assume that the internet offers a private, safe means of sharing personal information, which can become problematic if private details are later broadcast publicly.

Children may also draw wrong conclusions about the identities and intentions of strangers they “meet” online--a potentially dangerous habit.

3. Learn about computers and the internet

Like any other appliance in your home, a computer shouldn’t be available to your children unless you understand how it works and the risks and benefits of use.

4. Be specific and emphatic about which personal details are absolutely restricted.

Children should never share their real name, address, telephone number, credit card number, social security number, birthdate, or any other identifying detail over the internet, even with someone they think they know, without your permission and participation. You can explain that this is to protect the safety and financial well-being of the family.

Violations should be cause for serious consequences

5. Monitor and supervise internet use by elementary school-aged children

The computer should be in a public room with the screen easily observable to others. Parents should have no hesitation about observing the child during computer use. If children feel this is an invasion of privacy, explain that privacy in internet use comes when they are older and have proven that they are mature and responsible.

Maintain the passwords to all email accounts and check them regularly.

The internet is an extremely poor babysitter, akin to leaving your child alone in a bus station. Restrict the activity to times when you are around.

6. All in-person meetings with internet friends are to be arranged by and through parents

While good friendships can be initiated and sustained over the internet, initial meetings must be carefully screened and monitored by parents. You should be very suspicious of any child whom your child "meets" online and who wants to arrange an in-person meeting with your child. Telephone the parents of this new contact and be present when the children meet.

7. Insist on basic social decorum for internet communication

Let your children know that you expect them to use the same tact, manners, and politeness on the internet that they use at home and in school. If your children are involved in any inappropriate interaction involving this kind of behavior, they should expect to tell you about it, and they should expect consequences.

8. Parents need to be informed if children are the victims of internet harassment

Joking and teasing among kids is normal, and different children have different thresholds of sensitivity, but when individuals are singled out for especially harsh or vicious treatment, parents need to be notified and involved. If your child reports harassment, learn about the episodes and attempt to contact parents of involved children, the internet service provider, or the police. School staff can be helpful in reviewing your options, but are not responsible for internet socializing which takes place away from school.

9. Don’t hesitate to restrict or remove internet privileges if problems occur

Parents should take firm steps when internet socializing interferes with family life, schoolwork, social life, exercise, or time management.

10. Consider Internet Monitoring Software

Some packages allow monitoring of all social discourse, so you would know exactly which messages your child sent out, and which were received. If you use one of these, be sure your children know it, and be prepared for them to use lots of abbreviations and code words that they may need to translate for you.

11. Know your child!

Some children can handle internet socializing responsibly while others run wild. Make a careful and realistic assessment of who your child is. Personalize your internet management strategy based on the needs and characteristics of your child.

Dr. Kline is Associate Director of The Human Relations Service, Inc. in Wellesley, Massachusetts and a clinical psychologist in private practice. He can be contacted at HRS, 11 Chapel Pl., Wellesley, MA 02481, 781-235-4950. Email: MKlinePsyD@comcast.net

Just Say No?

Just Say No?

Robert Evans, Ed.D.

Years ago, during my training, I attended a seminar that met evenings at the home of an eminent Boston psychologist. Arriving early one night, I heard children shouting distantly above me, up in the third floor. Then suddenly I heard the eminent psychologist’s voice boom out, “Because your goddam father says so, that’s why!”

I was stunned. I didn’t have children yet, but I imagined that, properly trained, you would never have to speak to your offspring this way because you would always know how to get them to comply. And I knew the eminent psychologist would be embarrassed to have a rookie overhear him in a most unpsychological moment. But he came down the stairs and, with no trace of embarrassment, said, “Hi. How are you?”

It had been a hot day. His sons, aged ten and twelve, were sweaty and dirty, and he wanted them to take baths started so that they would be ready for bed when his seminar was over. He called up to get their attention—once, twice, three times. No answer. The fourth time they yelled back, “What.”

“Come down here,” he told them.

“Why?” they yelled back.

So he told them why. He wasn’t enraged, he was just telling them. Often, this is the only answer a parent can give: “Because I say so.” During 30 years as a parent and therapist, his example has stayed with me. He was a very caring father, but one who cared enough to insist when he needed to. More and more parents, it seems, find it hard to say no.

We are busier and more pressed. We have less time for our kids and feel guilty. We want things to go well and often lack the energy or patience for family friction. And often, we’re not confident about what is the “right” way to handle problem behavior. Moreover, many parents have been led to believe that it is harmful to say no to children.

Just the opposite is true. A key contributor to strong self-esteem in children is clear limits by their parents. When children know what goes and what doesn’t, their world is more secure. They grow up more confident, even if there is occasional controversy at home. When they never hear “No,” things may be smoother on the surface, but children don’t gain the skills and confidence they will need as adults and parents.

One way to say no constructively is to avoid overexplaining. When you have explained to children three times why they must do something they don’t want to do, or can’t do something they do want to do, what else can you offer? Repeating yourself a fourth time is unlikely to cause them to say, “Ohhh, now I get it. Thank you for persevering. I see that you were right and I was wrong.” Once you’ve heard your child’s point of view and reclarified your own, there is not much more you can say, except, “Because your mother says so.”

Needless to say, seting limits can cause upset and friction. This is not just inevitable, it is useful. For young people to eventually become successful parents they need good models. There is no way to do this and keep them perpetually happy. But the ultimate point of parenting is not to have children like us all the time, but to have them belike us when they are raising their own children. Parents certainly have a right to limit how children express their dislike, but not to expect that children won’t be disappointed or resentful. What they need to do is to let their children “get glad again.”

The phrase is my mother’s. Sometimes, when she just seemed impossibly rigid and my sister and brother and I told her so, she would say, “Well, you’ll just have to get glad again,” and walk off. Instead of arguing further, she just stopped negotiating. She wasn’t upset, she didn’t yell. She said it matter-of-factly and left the room. It made me furious—temporarily. I used to think to myself, “I won’t get glad again.” But of course I always did. Children always do. But even if they didn’t, there still isn’t much else a parent can say, once she has explained the reasons for her decision, and repeated them a time or two. As long as the decision is consistent, in a broad, general way, with her established practices and core values, it is unlikely to harm the children. Even if they dislike it they can make sense out of it. And as long as parents can remember this, they can be truer to themselves and can give their children a framework for growing up and for becoming good parents themselves.

Dr. Evans, a psychologist, is the Director of HRS. This article is adapted from his book, Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with The Crisis in Childrearing.

The Myth of Quality Time

The Myth of Quality Time

Robert Evans, Ed.D.

One of the great myths of parenting is Quality Time, the idea that childrearing can be handled in short doses of positive interaction. We may be too busy to spend much time with our children, so this theory goes, but it’s alright if that time is full of high quality contact. Unfortunately, this rarely works, in good part because children, by their very nature, provoke large quantities of low quality time.

I learned this lesson the hard way. Years ago, back when the Celtics were still a powerhouse, I kept hearing that I was the only father who never took his children to a Celtics game. One Wednesday, when I was offered four tickets, I bought them despite the cost and even though the game was on a school night and my younger son was in third grade.

The tickets turned out to be available because the opponents were terrible. The Celtics blew them out and, with four minutes left to play, I was ready to join the fans who were leaving. My son demanded to stay to the end. We ended up with me dragging him away as he clutched at the railing in front of him.

When we got home at 10:00 p.m. I said, “Bedtime.”

He said, “I’m hungry.”

“Listen,” I told him, “we ate before we left, you had two big pretzels and a hotdog. It’s 10:00 on a school night. Upstairs.”

He looked at me and said—I’ve never let him forget this—“You never do what I want!” There may be many things to do with a child in such a moment, but having a high quality interaction is not among them.

I think there are several lessons here. This first is that our kids won’t let us have just quality time only. Their needs and wishes, their natural self-centeredness make this impossible. To expect otherwise is to invite frustration and guilt.

Moreover, friction is not just inevitable, it’s useful. Low quality events not only do happen, they need to happen. They may not be fun, but they are vital learning experiences for children. How else will they know what to do when their own children exasperate them? (When you have really had it with your kids, whose tone of voice do you use, your mother’s or your father’s?)

Trying to force our children onto a diet of brief, high quality time can only strip the naturalness right out of our communication. Imagine, for instance, that I asked you to sit down right now and have a high-quality conversation with your spouse or a friend. The demand itself is disabling. We can only have high quality time together if we have enough total time so that we can tolerate the inevitable low quality moments.

We also need to remember that children learn from everything we say and do. We are teaching them all the time, not just when we think we’re teaching them. We need to think about the example we’re setting, not just the message we’re preaching.

At the Human Relations Service, we treat many children who are struggling with problems that affect their psychological and social development. In most cases their parents are trying hard to raise them well, but often they themselves are swamped, busy, overworked, and stressed. They lack the time to just “be” with their children, and they are hoping that somehow parenting can be concentrated into good moments, but they end up with the opposite of what they seek.

Our experience is that children need all sorts of time with parents, both high quality and low, structured and unstructured. A lack of parental attention contributes to many of the common behavior and academic problems that affect children. “All sorts of time” does not necessarily mean “huge amounts.” For example, small increases in time spent enjoying an activity together can make a big difference in a parent-child relationship. Focussing on what you treasure about your child, not just how she needs to improve, or how she compares to other kids also helps. When we work with parents, we try to help them identify and increase the interactions with their children that work well. Sometimes, a child’s problems are more serious and may require extensive help. That’s in part why agencies like ours exist. But even then the problem is likely to be, as we say, something that will improve with time.

Dr. Evans, a psychologist, is the Director of HRS. This article is adapted from his book, Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with The Crisis in Childrearing.