In the best-selling novel, Defending Jacob, author William Landay explores the idea that parents really don’t know their children. Andy’s son Jacob is a seemingly normal teenage boy, until the dad finds out about his weird Internet habits and disturbing conversations with friends, while investigating a local murder.
This morning, the Today show had a segment about a new study about teenage boys and sexting. Let’s just say that sexting isn’t only for New York City mayoral candidates.
Now, I’m a hundred percent sure that your kids and mine are not closet psychopaths with a penchant for violence. Your kid probably isn’t sending crotch shots to strange girls. However, there is a slight chance that his (or her) online persona is different from the child at the dinner table, and that he (or she) is looking at stuff online that would make your hair curl. What to do?
Our long-standing Internet policy is that Jonah’s phone is not his private property. It is subject to random spot checks. So, every month or two, I’ll check his phone in front of him. I’ll read all his texts and e-mail. Mostly the content of the texts are stupid boy stuff, like emoticon humor. Sometimes, there will be some griping about the tryanny of parents. I never give him a hard time about the tyranny of parents complaints. There’s one girl that obviously likes him and writes a lot of “I love you. JK. Lol.” stuff, but Jonah is too clueless to pick up the flirting cues.
After I review the content, I give him the same lecture. I remind him that nothing on the Internet is private. You have to be careful of not only what you look at, but what people send you. I remind him that the punishment for looking at or distributing inappropriate content is the loss of the cellphone for a year. If someone sends him something inappropriate and he tells me, then there is no punishment. If he doesn’t tell me, then he loses the phone for a year. No parole. I remind him that it’s my job to protect him and that’s why I’m doing this. I love him very much.
There have been high profile scandals in our town, so thankfully the school is giving him to same lecture as I am.
Middle school kids spend too much time on their own. Parents are often gleeful, when their kids hit 6th grade and they no longer have to pay for childcare. It’s a huge financial relief. But the result is that some kids spend five hours a day by themselves. The kids quickly finish their homework and eat a snack and then they get bored. They might just play video games in that time or they might tap in “p-o-r-n” into a google search and see stuff that their brains are too young to process.
Some of my working friends have come up with solutions. Some pay for a sitter to come by the house for a couple of hours to break up that time. Or they have a neighbor visit for a while. The kids don’t need an adult looking over their shoulder, but they do need a civilized presence in the house.
We enforce regular bedtimes, which leads to “tyranny of parents” rants from Jonah. Some of his friends are surfing the web until 4 am every day. Again, too much free time.
Boys are sexting for a variety of reasons. Not only does the access to porn trash normal barriers, but boys also have crummy social skills and they don’t have regular contact with girls. If boys are super involved with sports, the only girls that they have contact with are cheerleaders or the groupies that hang around the field to watch the boys. (Parents, please don’t let your girls do that.) Boys need to be in clubs or activities that give them contact with regular, smart girls.
Jonah loves Instagram. He’s an excellent photographer, and he loves the positive reaction that his images get from his peers. I’m thrilled that he has an avenue to pursue his creativity. But, Instagram requires oversight. So, I joined Instagram and followed my son. No only do I see what he posts, but I check out the comments from his peers. Last week, he posted a cute picture of himself leaping next to a rainbow, and a friend responded, “that’s so gay.” We had to have a conversation about how that’s not an appropriate word and he immediately deleted the comment.
The Internet doesn’t have a policeman, so parents have to take on that role. That means extra work for over-worked parents, but that’s the reality.
Apt. 11d 
Amen! I’d be interested to hear advice from teenage girls as well.
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My parents solved the issue of too much unsupervised time with chores. But, I grew up on a farm (both parents had jobs – farming wasn’t enough) and in a culture that expected children to do chores. I doubt it would work with suburban upper middle class kids.
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It has to start long before middle school as well – elementary school. Kids with middle school-age siblings or older are being exposed to much much more graphic material than we can imagine.
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wow, I think you are doing an amazing job! He’ll hear it like 15 times in the next few years and by the time one of his friends does something stupid, it will be second nature to him. I also think it is good for you to ignore the personal comments about parenting that are not offensive. A kid needs to blow off steam. What do I know, my kids are young, but this is great advice.
I also think kids could help cook more. My college roommate (a woman) had to prepare dinner for the family every night. She’d call her mom who would tell her what to do. Maybe that’s not ok when they are in 6th grade but by 9th grade a kid can put together a salad or prepare their own lunch. If your kid doesn’t like to cook, maybe they can do the laundry? choose a chore the kid kind of likes…there is always one.
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I read the article. It reminds me of the panic about “rainbow parties” and ” friends with benefits” pushed on parents some years ago. Yes, some kids are jerks, but they’re strongly influenced by their parents in how they treat members of the opposite sex.
You should friend your children on Facebook. 4th graders shouldn’t have cell phones or Facebook accounts. Most of the grossly sexual, rap music mimicking stuff calms down by the end of middle school. Jocks are more likely to be crude.
Sexting/suggestive texting goes both ways. Lots of nice girls post cheesecake shots on their Facebook accounts. They know boys can see their pictures–“friends of friends.” Girls can block unwanted texters, or tell them, ” yuck.” Lastly, different social groups of kids have different tolerances for abusive language. Posts on a Facebook wall are not private, and kids do comment on others’ comments.
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Speaking of teens, media and sex, here’s Sam Horowitz’s bar mitzvah, complete with what looks like his name in 10-foot-high lights:
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/WATCH-How-to-enter-a-bar-mitzva-323018
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I agree with all your rules and we also follow them. There are way too many stories of porn and the Internet to not take seriously the possibility that the boys are partaking, if unsupervised. I’m willing to see porn as a part of growing up, but the Internet stuff is too I anonymous and some of it is frightening. I don’t think any kid is immune.
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Teenage sexting is a real thing. Like I said in the original post, there have been major scandals in our town that involved the school’s internet system. Of course, kids are looking at porn. It’s way too easy for them to check it out. Not just boys, btw. And, call me old fashioned, but I don’t think that 15 year old kids really ought to be looking at videos of some poor girl getting several of her orafices serviced at the same time.
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And that’s the difference – it’s way, way beyond sneaking a peak at your dad’s Playboy mag. I wonder what their physical s*x lives are going to be like when they don’t match up to the extreme virtual images that they’ve been consuming for years.
Throw in a lack of understanding of the permanence of their own images on the internet with a dab of a desire to be “famous” sprinkled with a touch of teenage wobbly judgement and you have potential for a lot of heartache and mess.
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Certainly. I’ll add, they’re also more mature than we were–they hit puberty significantly earlier, on average. That means, though, that if they’re interested in sexual matters at earlier ages, it’s not necessarily technology which is the villain–hormones are.
The Today Show is owned by NBC, which is owned by Comcast. Comcast makes a great deal of money on “adult entertainment.” One side of the company sells the stuff the other side of the company gets everyone worried about. One side pushes really crude entertainment–and I include much of popular tv and film production in that–while the other makes money off of parental concern.
Parents of high school students should really worry about their children putting any of the stuff they might see online or on tv into practice. In terms of worry level, I’d be more worried about Steubenville than sexting.
There was a Frontline episode years ago, “The Lost Children of Rockdale County.” I don’t think the issues have gone away.
On the other hand, at some point high school students have to monitor their own media consumption and digital conversations. Kids from involved families usually make the right decisions.
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I also think that there will be a level of acceptance that people will have “inappropriate” pictures of themselves, in the hands of friends or even floating on the internet, in the same way that some illegal drug use is not a bar to future employment. Part of the problems will arise through over-reaction (when the 15 year old couple who sends pictures of themselves to each other get caught in child prnography laws).
Kids do need to transition out of supervision.
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We enforced strict bedtime for our about to be college son up until this summer. Internet went off at 10. Sometimes 9:30 if we were annoyed or knew he had to do some reading or something.
We did not inspect his phone ever. And we don’t inspect Geeky Girl’s either. I don’t see anything wrong with doing so, but I do think they deserve their privacy. I ask about who they’re texting and what they’re texting about. I look over shoulders sometimes. I have peeked at their phones. I’ve never seen anything horrible.
We have many conversations about sex, bullying, appropriate photos, etc. I’m friends with my kids in their various social networks. But I’m sure they know how to block things from me if they want.
I’m the main person responsible for talking to parents and students at my school about these issues. The message I tend to give parents is, it’s okay to set limits on computer/cell phone use. It’s okay to poke into your kids’ business. And don’t trust automated systems for doing this. Talk to your kid, ask questions, etc. And learn about these things. It’s not okay if your kid is a teen for you to not know about various online sites and tools. Get your head out of the sand!
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