1. family and parenting
2. children

Tuned-In Family
How to Cope, Communicate,
and Connect in a Digital World
by Dr. Elaine Young
April 2014 with
Champlain College Publishing Initiative
© 2014 Dr. Elaine Young. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form—written, electronic,
recorded, photocopied, or otherwise—without written permission of the
author, Dr. Elaine Young.
Print and eBooks available from ejyoung.com.
published
editing
Dr. Elaine Young
Jeremy Allmendinger
Jeremy Allmendinger
Katherine Brockaway
Andrea Drag
Tim Brookes
Sarah Frazier
Sarah Frazier
Jacqueline Stafford
design
creative consultant
Martin Simpson
Champlain College
Noah Limanek
Publishing Initiative
Jeremy Allmendinger
Andrea Drag
Sarah Frazier
Burlington, VT 05401
Images from Creative Commons. See attribution for details.
ISBN: 978-0-9884523-6-7
Printed in the United States.
dedication
To KT, Katie, and Kathryn—for the child you once were, the
tween who taught me so much, and the young woman you have
become. Without you this book would never have happened. We
have learned much together, you and I. Thank you for pushing
the boundaries, asking the questions, challenging assumptions,
listening, and above all, always learning.
praise for tuned-in family
“As a mom of three, an educator of twenty-eight years, and a
Graduate Mental Health Counseling student I must recommend
this book to anyone that interacts with children or technology.
This book is engaging to read, easy to understand, and apply to
our lives. It challenges us all to start the discussions and explore
the world of digital connectivity.”
Elizabeth Danyew
Early Education, mother
“As the parent of a teen and a 10-year-old, I have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about the safety of my children
and just what they are up to online and with social media. Elaine’s
book has helped me to separate fact from fiction and to ease my
mind a little—okay, a lot! She brings good sense to an emotional
topic and I feel educated enough to have reasonable conversations with my kids regarding this topic moving forward. Thank
you Elaine!”
Kimberly B. DuBrul
Your Year of Transformation
Life Coach, mother
contents
Foreword: Dr. Laurel Bongiorno8
Introduction: Why You Need This Book
10
What Exactly is the Problem? 12
Generation Connected:
A Better Way of Thinking About Digital Media
14
How Our Children Misunderstand Digital Media
16
Our Schools Cannot Keep Up Either
19
Using Digital Tools Means You Are
Building Your Digital Footprint or “Personal Brand”
23
You Are Not Alone
26
What This Book Is and What This Book Is Not
28
How This Book Is Structured
30
Part One: Setting the Foundation
32
Considering a technology philosophy
32
Face-to-Face and Virtual Communication:
How Different are They Really?
33
How We Use Technology is a Model for Our Children
35
Technology Between Two Sisters
36
The Foundation Begins with REDS
39
Now it is Your Turn
44
Creating your Family’s Technology Philosophy
46
Start by Asking and Answering Questions
48
Taking Stock: Our Social Media/Technology Inventory
53
Digital Communication Tool Landscape
56
Creating Our Content Sharing Plan
58
Building Your Child’s Permanent Record
58
Creating Your Social Map
59
Online Social Circle
62
Creating an Access Plan and Setting the Ground Rules
67
Use PAVER
67
Ground Rules
69
Part Two: Ages and Life Stages
72
Oh My! We are Going to Have a Baby!!
73
A New Technology Philosophy for Your New Arrival
75
Congratulations! You have a Child!
Birth to Three Years Old
78
Putting the Technology Philosophy to Work
79
Tech Baby-Proof
81
Welcome to the School Years!
Ages Four to Eight
83
Public and Private Ground Rules
84
The Tween Years: Nine to Twelve
96
Questions for Your Pre-Teen
98
Content Sharing between Friends and Family
104
What to Take Away
105
The Teen Years: Thirteen to Seventeen
108
Setting a Foundation of Trust
110
Teen Years Digital Tools
112
Conversation Starters
114
Action Steps
117
Beware of Oversharing
119
Congratulations! You Have an Eighteen-Year Old!
121
Transitioning to Adulthood
122
Conversation Starters
123
Advice from Young Adults
126
Templates132
Resources144
References146
Acknowledgments 150
foreword
As Elaine Young’s colleague of many years, I was excited for the
publication of this book. Elaine and I share research interests in
regard to both parental education and navigating the rapidly
changing world of technology. We also share being the mother
of daughters and have witnessed cyber-bullying, strangers in chat
rooms, and a different connectivity compared to our own childhoods. Elaine and I both agree that a “just say no” approach to
this new world is not useful either at home or in a school setting.
Making thoughtful, well-informed decisions and engaging in
relationship-strengthening conversations between parent and
child are key to successfully negotiating technology use—whether
your child is five or fifteen. As an early childhood educator, I
know that parents are exploring uncharted territory. I imagine
this is comparable to the first generation of parents who had
televisions in their living room; now, cell phones, iPads, video
games, and constant connectivity are pervasive. Parents must
make sense of the media messages designed for them and the
commercial messages designed for their children. Elaine brings a
myriad of issues to light at all stages of a child’s development.
This book provides parents with practical support. Elaine
challenges parents to be smart—to learn to use parental controls,
to give information, to set limits, to foster healthy parent-child
relationships, and to parent well. She also believes in collaboration between home and school. Elaine suggests that both should
work together to teach safety and responsibility as a technology
user. Elaine and I have had many conversations over the past
years about school administrators who choose to ban certain
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technologies rather than using them as learning opportunities.
Open discussion is central to a strong understanding of privacy,
safety, and responsibility. Elaine encourages keeping that
conversation going.
Elaine and I share a dedication to educating and empowering
parents. Through this book, Elaine has provided parents with the
tools they will need to move forward, thoughtfully, in our
ever-changing technological world.
Dr. Laurel Bongiorno
Dean, Division of Education and Human Studies
Champlain College
Burlington, Vermont
foreword
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introduction
why you need this book
If you are holding this book in your hand right now, it is probably
because in the back of your mind there is this thought that the
online environment or the “Internet” is taking over your life: your
home life, your work life, your children’s lives.
You remember a time when there was no Internet and you know
what it is like to be free of connection, to wander, and to not
always be connected with, and to, a digital device. But as a
parent, you find comfort in those devices that tether you to your
children. I know I do.
At the same time, we use these same devices in our professional
lives and they are woven throughout our personal lives. From
emails to GPS services to finding a place for dinner to even
grocery shopping we find comfort and convenience in the digital
tools we use every day.
This is what I call the digital paradox: both the yearning to be
able to “get away” and be completely disconnected from
all things digital like we did as children while at the same time
feeling great comfort and finding convenience in that connection.
Digital technologies make our lives easier. Knowing that you can
reach out to your child at any time to make sure they are okay,
and knowing that they can reach out to you at any time if they
need you, provides a sense of security and comfort that is
very real.
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As a parent in the digital age, when I think back to my childhood
and recall how I would leave my house every day and go to
school, and play in the neighborhood, and get into all sorts of
things I probably shouldn’t have, I wonder how my parents just
let me go.
Today, it is hard to imagine sending our children off without being
able to connect with them in some way. And our children have
come to rely more and more on these digital technologies, which
is most evident in the lives of our tweens and teens.
Pew Internet and American Life Project researcher Mary Madden
states in a recent study that “the nature of teens’ Internet use
has transformed dramatically—from stationary connections tied
to shared desktops in the home to always-on connections that
move with them throughout the day.”1
I’ve experienced this “move with them throughout the day” firsthand as a parent. It is what makes this connected feeling so real.
Now that my daughter is driving, she sends me text messages
when she arrives at school. The introduction of Snapchat into our
lives means I get random visual messages from her throughout
the day. Even when we are in the same house, we text or send
Facebook messages to each other because it’s sometimes easier
than having a face-to-face conversation.
This connectivity has built up over time. Even so, just a few years
ago I had my daughter take her cell phone to a two-week
summer camp, despite the camp rules discouraging them.
1 Madden et al.
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Though she didn’t call me for the first week, I found comfort in
knowing that she could reach out to me whenever she needed.
This is just one example of what an always-on, digitally
connected society has brought. It has changed how we interact,
our communication expectations, and how we send and
receive information.
Making a List: Your Social Media/Technology Inventory
What tools are you and your family already using? The list may
surprise you! Take a few minutes, using the the Social Media/
Technology Inventory template located in the resource section,
page 79.
What exactly is the problem?
I’m sure you have heard this idea that our children are more
technologically savvy because they are growing up with
computers all around them. Sometimes it seems as though they
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come out of the womb just knowing how to work an iPad, or
move a mouse, or set up the home theater system. From articles
that call our young children the “Touch-Screen Generation”1 to
the research about teens and technology conducted by the Pew
and Internet American Life project 2 we cannot escape the
perception that our children know more than we do about
digital technologies.
And yet, my experience and my own research3 has shown this
to be incorrect.
I have taught college students and pushed them to utilize new
communication technologies, and time and again watch as
they struggle to adapt. I see adults around me become easily
overwhelmed and observe far too many young people at a loss
when it comes to navigating a digital society. Keeping up with
technology innovation and change is a challenge at any age.
Often as a parent you might feel overwhelmed by all the changes,
but remember that technology today requires adapting at a pace
that we did not experience when we were younger, and our
young people are struggling too. This means we are all learning
how to do this together.
Naturally with all of this connectivity come the safety issues and
privacy challenges that we cannot escape. Cyber-stalking,
cyber-bullying, identity theft, spam, viruses, malware, hacking….
It is a scary cyber-world we live in and for many of us it is easier
1 Rosin, 2013
2 Madden et al, 2013
3 Young, 2007
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to avoid it all than try to understand it. There are stories every
day about the horrors and havoc that are wreaked upon others
because of cyberattacks. We all worry about the bullying that can
occur in and out of our schools via digital means. Having access
to mobile, always-on tools like cell phones and tablet computers
means that it is much easier for others to reach out to our
children in ways we cannot control.
Our challenge as parents is to help our children learn how to
function in a society that is not only different from the one of our
own childhood, but different from what it was two years
ago, two months ago, even two weeks ago. The situation is
constantly new for all of us. Parents, children, schools, families,
and communities are in this together.
Specifically we are now living in a digital era where our children:
•
•
•
•
Have become a “connected” generation
Misunderstand digital media
Lack school support
Create their own digital footprint or “personal brand”
Generation Connected:
A Better Way of Thinking About Digital Media
Rather than assume our children are more technologically savvy
than we are, a better way to describe our children’s hi-tech
upbringing is that they are growing up in an always on and
connected society or home1. Some refer to them as Generation
1 NPD Group, 2013
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C for Generation Connected1. In reality it’s not just our children
who are “Generation C”. We all are. We have all become a
connected generation. It’s less about age and more about how
we live our lives.
The devices that bring convenience to our personal and
professional lives are all around us. Take a moment and consider
your daily life and just how much you interact with others via
communication technologies. As I consider my own day, I see
exactly how I am an active part of “Generation C” at age 46. My
phone is both my alarm and my news source in the morning as
I scan headlines from Twitter and other social tools. It is my
workout companion, streaming music when I’m at the gym. I
discuss transportation options with my daughter via texting and
even check the weather to decide what to wear for the day. My
phone is my navigation system. Once I get to work I have access
to a laptop and a wide range of other useful technologies.
Communication technologies have become such a part of my
every day that I don’t even give them a second thought.
We are, indeed, becoming a fully connected society.
I think this is a much better description of what we as parents
and families are facing as communication technologies are not
just available in our houses and workplaces, but on our bodies.
From ever-present mobile devices to the ubiquitous buds stuck
in people’s ears to new tools like Google Glass that incorporate
computer functionality into a pair of glasses, digital technologies
are threaded throughout our lives.
1 Friedrich et al. 2010
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They bring convenience, connection, and ease our ability to
communicate with friends and families. At the same time they
carry a set of challenges that range from etiquette to worries
about the erosion of interpersonal communication skills, to
behaviors and connections with people that can be as helpful and
simple as setting up meetings with people we know, to more
frightening scenarios ranging from stalking and even kidnapping.
We cannot assume that children “swimming in the technology
water” equates to an understanding of that technology, any
more than we can assume that because we’ve grown up in times
that were less digitally connected we can’t possibly adapt.
Our children simply don’t understand the nuances and broad
implications of these tools.
How Our Children Misunderstand Digital Media
As a college professor, I have had the opportunity to study often
and in detail (in my classes, and through questionnaires) how
18 – 24 year-olds think about digital media. Some of what I have
learned may surprise you.
• Students see their online content as their own. The free spaces
they use to post that content and connect with their family
and friends seem to belong to them. For example, Facebook
is “their space” and they do not like to be reminded that it is,
after all, a public space.
• They do not know how to manage their computers and
technology devices. Specifically, they do not think about
security. Many of my students don’t keep their software
16 | tuned - in family
up-to-date and somehow assume that the manufacturers of
their devices will “keep them safe.”
• Students are worried about their privacy. I have a growing
number of students who resist putting up content and using
tools such as Facebook and Twitter because they dislike being
“connected” and the pressure that goes with it. They are
worried that they are losing their private lives to technology.
• They are very concerned about what being “always
connected” is doing to society. Many of my students
remember a childhood free of technology tools, and are
worried about those who come after them. My students see
younger individuals tied to their cell phones and screens and
are afraid for a generation of young people who cannot cope
without their digital devices.
• The more they learn in my classes about the connectedness,
data sharing, and the data trail that one leaves as they utilize
these tools, the more my students see the need to divide their
private life from their professional life, especially at a time
when that line is blurring more and more.
• My students see the value of the tools from a marketing,
communication, and business perspective and even celebrate
the convenience that many of these tools bring.
• The amount of information coming at my students on a daily
basis is not empowering. It is paralyzing. They do not know
how to process, curate, sort, and filter this data.
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At the same time I have had the opportunity to teach middle
school children about social media tools and their online/digital
footprint. In talking with them I find many children 13 years and
younger are exploring social media and online tools because it is
easy to make accounts, their friends are doing it, and there are
few barriers to adoption. According to the young people I’ve
taught in sessions:
• They don’t think about anyone finding and reading the
content they are creating—outside of their friends.
• They have little knowledge about how the internet and
information technology works so they do not think about
their content being stored, let alone how it is being stored.
• They are often surprised to learn just how much of a
“footprint” they are leaving as they play with and explore
these tools.
• They are tired of hearing about all the “scary” stories of bullying, stalking, and sexting while at the same time—in typical
pre-teen/young-teen fashion—they judge their peers
for “stupid” behavior.
What we can see from my observations of both 18 – 24 year olds
and middle and high school children is that regardless of age,
they have to be taught the significance of what it means to post
content online. When they truly realize how many people can
see their content, interact with their content, and make decisions
about them based on that content, their whole perspective
changes.
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Our Schools Cannot Keep Up Either
As a working mom, I am acutely aware of just how difficult it is
to stay on top of all the things your child does in school. I have
had to rely on many individuals to ensure a strong education for
my daughter. From daycare when she was very little, to preschool, to elementary, middle, and high school there have been
many educators in her life. As a parent, I have learned a great
deal over the years about both private and public education (my
daughter attended private, Catholic schools as well as public
schools).
There have been amazing opportunities for my daughter, and a
good number of talented, passionate individuals who have cared
deeply, provided her with excellent education, and introduced
her to so many new things.
However, both public and private schools have limited resources,
limited time, and are often bound by legal and other policy
challenges that prevent them from being able to address teaching
digital communication technologies in a proactive way. A recent
report from The New Media Consortium on Technology in K – 12
Education highlights some of the many challenges our teachers
and schools are facing, including school policy constraints, lack
of human resources, and outdated infrastructure.
While many K – 12 schools utilize tools like Google Apps for
Education, or Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard
or Moodle to enhance learning opportunities, or while they offer
iPads or laptops, or encouraging students to “Bring Your Own
Devices” (BYOD), still others do not, and for many different
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reasons. This inconsistency is part of an overall challenge for parents and families as we all struggle to become digitally literate.
Digital Literacy
Digital literacy is the ability to effectively and critically navigate,
evaluate and create information using a range of digital
technologies. It requires one “to recognize and use that power, to
manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute pervasively,
and to easily adapt them to new forms.
Take a minute to examine the Common Core State Standards
Initiative1. This initiative is a, “state-led effort that established a
single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through
12th grade in English language arts and mathematics that states
voluntarily adopt.” It has been adopted by 48 states as of this
writing. The goal is to have a common set of educational
standards for all of our children in every state throughout
the nation.
Notice that at the policy-setting level for K – 12 education,
digital literacy is absent. In effect, one of the trends that is having
the largest impact on how we play, learn, work, and interact is
not getting the attention it deserves in our educational system in
a consistent, meaningful way. This means that pockets of
innovation will happen, some schools will be successful, and
others will not, and families will be left to do the best they can.
1 http://www.corestandards.org
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Additional information comes from a nonprofit Educational
Consortium, EduCause, which publishes an annual report on
trends for education. This “Horizon Report” highlights a set of
trends for education levels ranging from K – 12 through college.1
I provide the list here for perspective on just how much education
needs to evolve in order to stay relevant, and how much we, as
parents, need to be prepared for an education for our children
that is, and should be, drastically different from our own.
• Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning,
hybrid learning, and collaborative models.
• Social media is changing the way people interact, present
ideas and information, and communicate.
• Openness—concepts like open content, open data, and open
resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access
to data and information—is becoming a value.
• As the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and
open up their access policies, it is becoming more common
for students to bring their own mobile devices
• The abundance of resources and relationships made easily
accessible via the Internet is challenging us to revisit our roles
as educators.
1 http://www.educause.edu
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Finally, the report goes on to highlight the challenges educators
are facing, and ones that I believe have a big impact on how we
address technology use and policies in our own families.
• Ongoing professional development needs to be valued and
integrated into the culture of the schools.
• Too often education’s own practices limit the broader uptake
of new technologies.
• New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to traditional models of schooling.
• K – 12 must address the increased blending of formal and
informal learning.
• The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices.
• We are not using digital media for formative assessment the
way we could and should.
I invite you to read the report, which you can find here: http://
www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-report-k12.pdf
As a parent, I have learned that too often, teachers aren’t fully
trained on new systems, which means the children in the
classrooms only use the tools minimally, which means the parents
don’t really see the full benefit. While wearing my “mom” hat I
have learned:
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• Schools are under-resourced and more often than not ruled
by fear of the bad things that can happen to children utilizing
digital tools.
• New tools require training. Training for teachers, administrators, students, and parents/families takes time, resources
and patience.
• Disparate backgrounds often mean that one teacher may be
very comfortable with technology, while another may not be.
The same holds true for families and students.
• Coping with the fast pace of technology innovation and keeping up with the tools that come out is nearly impossible when
other priorities must be met.
• Setting a foundation at home has enabled my daughter to
take advantage of opportunities at school while avoiding
many technology pitfalls.
All of this is to say very clearly that we cannot rely solely on our
schools to teach digital literacy because it is not a mandate, they
are not resourced, and it is not the priority it needs to be.
Using Digital Tools Means You Are Building Your Digital
Footprint or “Personal Brand”
From the first image we post of ourselves or our children, we
begin building our digital footprint. At a time when “Googling”
yourself has become a pastime, and digital technologies track
everything from our location, to the content we post, to what
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we click on, we are creating a digital timeline of where we have
been, what we are doing, and where we are going.
As I have said, it’s simply not true that our children know more
about digital technologies than we do. Amy Jo Martin, a noted
expert in social media, wrote, “According to a recent study, 78%
of parents helped create their children’s Facebook pages, and 7.5
million users are under the age of 13. The way your kids use
social today will shape their future. It’s time for everyone to get
educated on how—and how not—to live online.”1
She goes on to stress that helping our children to navigate this
online world is no different than teaching them how to ride a
bike. It is important because, “...kids are building a personal
brand from an early age.”1
What does she mean by “personal brand”? Branding, as a
practice in the marketing field is all about communicating to a
group of people the attributes of a product or service. To create
an image and connect emotions to a product so it is memorable,
something that people will talk about, and buy. Think of your
favorite brands and consider the emotions you connect to that
brand. It could be a brand that was in your house growing up,
one that, as a parent, you continue to use because it is not only
a good product, but one that evokes pleasant memories
and emotions.
With the advent of digital communication technologies, most
specifically tools that make it very easy to create content that is
1 Martin, 2013
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posted online, in a public forum, we can extend this product
branding idea to people. Every time we create content about
ourselves, we are building the framework for our personal brand
and for what people will think about us.
You can think of creating this content as personal storytelling or
even creating an online identity. No matter how you think about
it though, keep in mind that every piece of content we post, from
status updates, to pictures, to blogs, or videos is creating that
personal brand. When you write about your child on Facebook,
you create content that can be mapped back to your child. When
you post a picture, you create a digital archive of your child.
Remember always that this content lives on a set of computer
servers that save this content, and remember that sites like
Google are built to search for and connect information based on
keywords.
We see this with celebrities all the time. But now we can see this
online branding with our own children. Those teens who are
athletically inclined and want to be noticed by college recruiters
are building online portfolios of their skills in video and pictures
so that they can be easily found when someone does an online
search for them. We also see high school students who use
pseudonyms so people, in theory, cannot find them in online
searches.
More and more it isn’t our children who are just building their
personal brand. Families, parents, grandparents, and siblings
are all building that brand for our children before they even have
a say or any control. Pictures, videos, status updates, blogs
chronicling a mother’s pregnancy, Instagram pictures of baby’s
first anything, apps that help you build your children’s timeline—
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all of these tools have been created to help us share and remember the highlights of our children’s and families’ lives, but at the
same time all of this content is being stored in some capacity and,
if it is public, it can be part of online search results.
You Are Not Alone
While the challenges I have just laid out may seem overwhelming
and may be new to you, remember that you are not alone. It is
not just adults who are feeling uncertain and struggling to find
our way in a sea of always changing digital technologies. Our
children are too.
I have written this guidebook because in an always-connected
society we must work out how to foster learning communities
within our own families. Just as we create opportunities for our
little ones to learn how to walk, read, and play sports, we must
now look at technology in the same light. Teaching, guiding,
adapting, experiencing, and learning together as a family has
become critically important.
I was moved to write this book for these very reasons. I have
experienced the rise of digital communication technologies
first-hand and I have been in love with “technology” my whole
life. In 1977 my father brought home our first personal computer:
the TRS-80 model I and I was hooked. Computers and digital
communication tools have been a part of my life ever since.
So much so that in my professional life I started out in public
relations and marketing and moved into teaching at the
college level.
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As a professor I’ve utilized all manner of communication
technologies and am often an “early adopter” of new tools so I
can explore their value and teach them in classes. I have
developed and taught a variety of courses that explore the use
of digital communication technologies for professionals and for
individuals. Courses such as Digital Marketing, Social Interaction
in a Digital Age, Technology as a Disruptive Force, and Managing
Online Communities have allowed me to explore how we use
communication technologies and how that use is affecting our
daily lives.
My experiences as both a mom and a professor have taught me
many things. Perhaps the most important is that families need
help to navigate these waters just as much as our children do.
Just as much as our schools do.
Martin points out in her recent article for Fast Company that
parents are asking her and her company “what’s the first step?”
She writes, “...sit down with your kids and ask them what they
know. Do an informal assessment and study their proficiency.
Hop on the computer and mobile phone to evaluate their proficiency and better understand what they know. You might be
surprised. Then, after you’ve educated yourself, educate your
children”1.
This book is designed to help you do just that.
1 Martin 2013
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What This Book Is and What This Book Is Not
As noted earlier, this book is intended as a guide but it is not a
specific “how to” book. I’m going to suggest questions to ask
and discussions to hold with your family so you develop the
“how to” that works best for your family in the context of your
own values, views, and beliefs.
It is also not a guide to technology. There will be no instruction
on how to navigate Facebook, or how to use Twitter, or how to
choose an email client. I will not advocate for or endorse any
specific tool, platform or operating system or brand. There are
many great “how-to” guides available; you can easily find the
one for you using the resources I provide at the end of this book.
There are also many different “safety” guides. While I will address
ways in which to talk with your family about digital safety, I will
not get into details that you can find elsewhere. Consider this
book a way to have the conversations and set the foundation for
your family, and utilize the resources I’ve provided to get help
with specific tools, safety concerns, and learning opportunities.
These pages contain advice and guidance that I have developed
based on my experience as a Mom, a digital marketing professor,
and a professional. Along with it comes the experiences of 52
parents with children ranging in ages from babies to young adults.
These parents responded to a survey circulated via email and
social media in late fall 2012. This work also includes advice from
individuals aged 18 - 26 who responded to a different survey
circulated at the same time (for their specific advice see the chapter on “Advice from the Trenches”). All of these inputs helped
me develop this guide.
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This book is a guide for parents and families as you navigate
this brave new digitally connected world, both protecting your
children from the dark side of digital technologies and at the
same time, teaching them how to harness the positive power of
these technologies. It is my hope that what follows in these pages
will allay your uncertainty, provide you with resources, and
help you as you raise your children to be digitally savvy in a
digital world.
This is a parenting book that will help you and your family address
communication technologies in your lives, not as a separate thing
to be dealt with when trouble brews, but rather as something
integrated throughout your lives and the life stages of your
family. Let me say that again in another way, as I think this is a
vital point. The best way to avoid a crisis in your family (the kind
which one of your children is yelling “Yes!” while you are yelling
“No!”) is by thinking and talking about these issues ahead of time.
Early and often.
The idea behind creating a plan is simple. As parents, we know
that we cannot protect our children from every experience life
has to offer, and we know we really shouldn’t. We want them to
be constantly expanding their horizons, and their understanding
of the world, but we want to make sure they aren’t exposed to
too much too quickly. We also want to be able to talk through
new experiences with them so we can guide the conclusions they
may draw from them. With this approach, anything becomes a
teachable moment. When we drive past a terrible car crash,
simply saying “Don’t look!” only reinforces their anxiety. A
thousand different conversations might arise, but if we
are present to manage those conversations and answer their
questions, we’re not forcing them to reach their own confused
why you need this book
| 29
conclusions. We’re acting as good, active, thoughtful parents. If
we do this for so many different life events and situations, why
not do the same thing for the technology that is such an integral
part of our lives?
So much of this is about how you as a family plan to approach
allowing your children to experience different tools—from getting a mobile phone, to a personal computer, to a game console,
to joining a social network—and less about the actual tools themselves. Setting the groundwork and the expectations as a family
when your children are young (or before you even have them) is
ideal, but you can sit down at any time and have a conversation
that will help you get there.
How This Book Is Structured
This book is organized quite simply. In Part One, I start by exploring how to set the foundation by building your own technology
philosophy, and break out a process that I call “guideposts” to
help you set the framework for your family’s approach to digital
communication technologies. To make going through the process
as simple as possible I’ve provided worksheets and templates in
the resources section at the back of the book. In Part One you’ll
find:
Setting a Foundation: Considering Your Technology Philosophy
and Creating Your own Technology Philosophy: to help families
develop their technology philosophy.
Guidepost #1: Taking Stock—our Technology Inventory: to help
you assess your current social media and communication
technology use habits
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Guidepost #2: Our Content Sharing Plan: to help families decide
what they will share, with whom, through what media channels.
Guidepost #3: Creating our Access Plan and Setting our Ground
Rules: what tools will you allow access to in your family, when
can the tools be accessed? How will you stay up to date? What
are the rules for use, what are the consequences for breaking the
rules?
In the second part of the book, I provide specific guidelines
grouped by life stage or age so you can easily skip to the most
appropriate section for your family:
•
•
•
•
•
•
We’re going to have a baby!
Birth to Three years old
The School Years: Four – Eight
The Tween Years: Nine – Twelve
The Teen Years: Thirteen – Seventeen
Launch: Eighteen and beyond
The book ends with advice from young adults and additional
resources that will help you to stay current and answer specific
questions you might have about safety, privacy, technology
changes, and up-and-coming new tools.
why you need this book
| 31
chapter two
considering a technology philosophy
Before you can begin talking with your family about digital
technologies and setting ground rules, it is important to set a
foundation that is grounded in your family’s values, beliefs, and
culture. It is also helpful to take a moment and really think about
how virtual/digital spaces, though different, are often more similar to face-to-face situations than we realize.
The first assignment I give my students in our course on
Managing Online Communities is to observe a community of
people as they interact. While many of us equate community to
our towns or neighborhoods, a community is really any grouping
of people who come together in shared experiences. A group of
people working in a specific department form their own sense of
community, as does a sports team, as does a group that gathers
weekly to participate in a hobby. Thinking about community in
this way helps us all to remember that communities no matter
how small or large are made up of individuals. This same
community formation occurs in virtual reality as well. Dedicated
Facebook groups or sports forums are both great examples of
this. Whether a community is face-to-face or virtual it is made
up of people. Each person is an individual with a personality,
interests, and ways of reacting to things that will be different
from others.
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Face-to-Face and Virtual Communication:
How Different are They Really?
Why is this important? Because it is very easy for us to believe
that the virtual/digital spaces we use are somehow different from
being in a face-to-face social situation with another person. And
yet, fundamentally they are the same. We are surprised that
bullying happens online, but is it really any different than any
other type of bullying? We expect people to be respectful of
others when they are in person, why shouldn’t we expect the
same behavior online? The technical differences are simple:
• In a face-to-face situation we must face a person directly,
which makes most of us pause and consider the other’s
reactions and feelings because we can see them react as we
are having a conversation. Online, we cannot see that
reaction, unless we are engaged in a real-time video chat
with someone.
• Online interactions are often permanent and can follow us
for years, while face-to-face meetings are captured in our
memories, but may not have the same permanency as
those online.
• In an online environment messages can travel farther, faster,
and are often magnified in ways completely out of our control,
while face-to-face interactions and messages don’t travel as
far, as fast.
Starting from the realization that however we treat people in
person and however we want to be treated in person is how we
should act and react online sets a positive tone for your entire
considering a technology philosophy
| 33
family. In other words, starting with the technology and settings
on that specific technology (whether it be something like
XBox Live or Facebook) ignores the more important aspect of
acknowledging the individual, his or her maturity level, interests
and goals, as well as the behavior you want to model for
your children.
Consider something as simple, yet emotionally difficult as your
tween daughter having a fight with her best friend. If they have
the fight in person, they may yell and cry and say terrible things
to each other. And yet, with a little time, and coaching from their
parents, these young people can often work through the issues.
However, suppose the same fight happens virtually, over
Facebook. Suddenly not only is it more visible to all of their
friends and “friends of friends” and family, but it is more
damaging because there are no interpersonal cues to follow so
there is a greater chance these young people will write things
they would never say in person.
If you focus only on the tool in this situation and have your
daughter deactivate her account—which may make a good deal
of sense if things get particularly difficult—you still aren’t solving
the overall problem. But, if you have set a framework for respect
and consideration that follows your child from interpersonal
communication to digital communication that fight may never
have happened in an online space.
If you consider how your daughter, at age 12, interacts with
individuals in a face-to-face environment, you may also find that
she is really not emotionally mature enough to be on a tool
like Facebook. In short, even though online and offline seem
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different, they are interconnected in such a way that basic
etiquette and considerations hold true across both.
How We Use Technology is a Model for Our Children
Have you considered that how you use digital tools sets a model
for your children’s use of digital tools? The new tool, Google
Glass, which essentially is a pair of glasses that are
technology-enabled created by the amazing people at Google,
allows you to take incredible pictures. Because you are
hands-free and the picture is taken based on what you are
looking directly at, you can interact with your subject as you take
the picture. Just imagine the types of pictures you can get of
your children, including action shots that capture some amazing
moments in their lives. At the same time, however, because these
glasses are Internet-enabled, if you have a setting that allows
those pictures to immediately be shared on your social networks,
not only are you building your child’s digital identity, you are also
modeling that you can take anyone’s picture at any time and
share it without first asking permission.
It was different when our cameras weren’t Internet-enabled,
before we had instant sharing capabilities. But now, if we want
to foster an environment of respect, especially with our children,
we must rethink how, when, and what we share. At what age
will you begin modeling for your children that you should ask
permission first? I would say as soon as they are born. Let them
see you ask other people, your partner, your older children. Then,
as your child matures you can start asking them permission—
even as early as 1 or 2 years old.
considering a technology philosophy
| 35
I remember how fascinated my daughter was by video cameras
and watching herself on video at a very young age. She wanted
to see the “baby” in the video. It was at that stage that I started
helping her understand that that “baby” in the video was really
her. If I could have instantly shared those videos at that time, I
would have started asking her if she wanted Grandma and
Grandpa to see it, or if we could show her Aunties. Notice
how even at that very young age, you can model asking first,
before posting.
This is where the philosophy to technology comes in to help
guide you through the many different “technology” scenarios
you will encounter with your family.
Technology Between Two Sisters
I’d like to share another story that illustrates starting with the
individual rather than the technology. A story of two sisters,
both of whom use technology in their lives in many ways, from
their work to their hobbies to their every day. They are four
years apart. It is clear when you meet them that while they are
obviously related and are similar in some ways, they are individuals with different attitudes, hobbies, passions, and lifestyles.
Yes, this is a story about my sister and me.
I love technology. I love communication technology. I love how
it changes and is different every day. When Facebook changes
their privacy policy, I’m thrilled. When YouTube updates their
interface I’m eager to try it out. When a new online tool comes
out, I sign up for the beta. World of Warcraft updates, I’m so
there. I run a dual operating system on my home computer (Win-
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dows and Linux/Kubuntu). I can’t wait to try out Google Glass
(although I am fully aware of the implications, and must admit
that it is daunting). I thrive on always-changing user interfaces
because it keeps things interesting. I had a Palm Pilot (remember
those?) when they first came out, then a Blackberry, and now an
Android mobile phone. I use QR codes to direct my students to
places to sign up for office hours. I use collaborative software and
Skype and Google Hangouts for office hours with students in my
online classes and for advising students who are studying abroad.
When an interface changes my first reaction is to look to see
what else has changed, to quickly read to find out what else I
need to know, and then dive in. When Facebook introduced
Graph Search, I watched the announcement live, posted
information about it, and signed up to get it as soon as I could. I
learn by doing, by exploring, by trying things out. Once I learn
it, I can help others to adapt, adjust, and know what they need
to do to maximize the tool for their needs.
My sister, on the other hand (a reference librarian at a large
college, therefore no slouch), uses online communication
technology to stay connected. She is a wizard at finding
information, both in print and online through multiple databases.
She is knowledgeable about maps, infrastructure systems, and
planning boards because at one point in her life she was a land
surveyor. She is a creative textile artist who uses a sewing
machine that at times can rival my computer. And yet, when
there is an interface change, an operating system upgrade, a new
online tool, she is decidedly not happy. She freely admits that
user interface changes often seem designed just to cause her
discomfort. That new tools that come online are just “one more
thing to have to deal with.” She has asked me on numerous
occasions about why all this change has to happen anyway. From
considering a technology philosophy
| 37
her point of view, when everything is working just fine and she
is used to the interface and has integrated the tool into her life,
why does it have to change? She is not alone in thinking this way.
Many of my students, who are far younger, feel the same way.
This personal story illustrates just how difficult it is to come up
with a “one-size-fits-all” technology philosophy for your
home and your family. Granted, we are adults now, but you
can imagine how difficult it would have been to enforce a
technology-use rule in our household given our different
attitudes toward technology. And yes, we’ve always been like
this. You can also see how our two households would have very
different perspectives and philosophies toward technology for
our families.
I’m here to tell you that not only is this ok, but that acknowledging each individual’s point of view on technology use and
adoption is a key component of recognizing and even celebrating
how different approaches to communication technology set the
foundation for your family’s technology philosophy. Once again,
one size does not fit all. Articulating a technology philosophy is
a great way for a family to acknowledge its overall attitude
toward technology in the home and to set a baseline that allows
you to frame the right conversations with your family at the
appropriate times. At the same time, it gives you the room you
need to adjust for each individual, as the technology changes.
As you get ready to create your family’s technology philosophy,
let me walk you through mine, so that you can see how it came
about and how it has evolved as both technology and my
daughter and I have. Hopefully this illustration will help you to
see how to begin the process within your own family.
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The Foundation Begins with REDS
Here’s a breakdown of how my daughter and I have adapted to
technology together, using an approach I call REDS: Research,
Explore, Discuss, and Set Boundaries.
research
We don’t know what we don’t know. Research enables us to find
out about a new tool/game/social network/operating system/
virus alert. I do this by reading information, watching videos, and
reaching out to friends and other parents as needed.
I am lucky that I already have a great deal of knowledge about
social media tools, marketing, and technology communication.
However, there is still a great deal that I do not know. There is so
much information available online that it can be overwhelming.
That’s why I access specific trusted references including Wikipedia,
current technology news sources Mashable and CNet, and friends
who have more knowledge than I.
Remember, trust but verify your sources. Check in with your
friends on what they use. Naturally a book like this is also helpful.
considering a technology philosophy
| 39
explore
It’s always good to “try before you buy” right? The beauty of
many of these tools is that anyone can have an account and
there are often screenshots and descriptions that help to
understand more about the tool.
Exploration allows you to try it out, explore it, and determine the
value. I get trial versions, or sign up for accounts and spend a
little time checking out the tool or game. I read the End User
License Agreement (EULA) that comes with all software,
especially for online social networks and tools that will store my
personal content.
Most importantly is that these technologies you are exploring fit
within what your family agrees on for your beliefs, culture, and
overall goals.
discuss
Having meaningful conversations about technology tools is
perhaps the most important aspect of creating a family learning
community. Much like a classroom, this is where we can talk
about the technology together, share findings from our research
and assess the value we see in it. This is where we also discuss
the pros and cons of the software, and how it does or does not
align with our family technology philosophy.
I cannot overstate how important this type of discussion is. Work
hard here to understand what your child wants (often they will
initiate wanting a particular game, or access to a social network)
and why. At the same time you have to be able to help them
40 | tuned - in family
understand what is important to you and what your concerns
might be. It is here where you work with your children to move
beyond what their friends have and focus on what your family
wants.
For the record, my daughter hates this part—the part where I
don’t care what her friends are doing, I just care about what she
is doing. Now, believe me, I understand this is not easy. What
parent hasn’t had the conversation that includes the words, “But
all my friends...” or “But EVERYONE...”
Whether it is about clothing, food choices, movies, or computer
technologies, we’ve all been there. Ground your conversation in
your technology philosophy. This conversation can also swing the
other way. I know I spent a great deal of time talking with my
daughter about the value of Google Docs (now Google Drive)
for schoolwork. She resisted for some time because her friends
weren’t using it. I was patient with this process and just kept
highlighting how this could be helpful for her. It wasn’t until she
forgot a project on a flash drive and had to recreate it at school
that she found out why Google Docs is a great tool, has excellent
value, and has allowed her to even share documents with
her teachers.
Does your family feel that violent video games are okay? Then
that’s fine. Do you believe as a family that the only video games
you want in your home are educational? That’s fine as well. This
is the place where you work together (regardless of your child’s
age) to help them understand. It is also the time to provide
context and information to the family as to why a particular tool
might be of benefit and how the family as a whole might use it.
Consider photo-sharing websites as a great example of this.
considering a technology philosophy
| 41
Which one might you use and why? The End User License
Agreement (EULA) should be a big part of the conversation.
set boundaries and consequences as appropriate
What are the rules for the use of technology tools? What drives
those rules? What can we agree on? Don’t set consequences that
you aren’t willing to enforce, and don’t set rules unless the whole
family agrees to them. Remember, as parents you will also have
to adhere to the rules and suffer the consequences as well.
For my daughter, her first social network, Club Penguin, came
with some specific ground rules, namely that she could not friend
anyone whom she didn’t already know in real life. She was six
years old and it was the time for her to start learning that the
cute avatar on the screen might not actually have a “cute person”
behind it. It’s an important concept for our children to
understand. When she received a postcard from a “friend” and
we had the conversation where she realized, and I did too, that
she wasn’t really face-to-face friends with this person, the
consequence was immediate. She lost her privilege to the game.
I stood over her as she learned how to shut down her account.
She would never have access to this again. The alternative was
to take Club Penguin away for a week, but it was very important
that she learn this lesson in a way that was lasting so she
understood at her age level that being friends online is not the
same thing as being face-to-face friends.
Her next foray into social networking didn’t happen until she was
eight and started with WebKinz, a social network that connected
to a real stuffed animal that you purchased in the store, one
which could “come alive” in a virtual world. She never once
42 | tuned - in family
became friends with someone she didn’t know. She had learned
her lesson.
I have also had to deal with situations where I crossed rule
boundaries as well. Our rule is that we must ask each
other’s permission before we can post images or post on
each other’s Facebook walls. I once crossed that line and posted
content without asking her permission. She was rightfully quite
upset with me. I apologized and took the content down
immediately. The long-term consequence also included her
refusal to allow me to post anything about her for months. But I
learned my lesson and am very careful now to always ask
permission before posting any content about her.
Many parents I know have set rules of engagement around
games and online access that include “screen time” of an hour
or two per day. Many of the parents who took my survey
referenced the concept of screen time as part of their family rules.
This works well and makes a lot of sense if you equate screen
time to what it was when screens were simply about watching
TV shows, as it was when many of us were young. However, as
technology has advanced “screen time” has changed as well.
We can no longer assume that screen time just equals play time.
The emphasis now needs to be more about the actual actions
someone is taking while they are on the screen. When you begin
to break down how screens have become such an integral part
of our lives, simple time-based rules may not suffice. It is now
about what is being accomplished or the task that needs to be
completed.
considering a technology philosophy
| 43
With this in mind, focus on mind, body, health, and wellness.
From ergonomics to the impact of screen time on the eyes, as
well as concerns about being too sedentary, all areas should be
explored. Setting guidelines as simple as getting up to stretch and
refocus the eyes on something else will become just as valuable
as our work to get our children to wear sunscreen.
A large number of studies have provided recommendations for
how professionals should manage their screen time. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has guidelines
for screen use and how to protect your eyes. Other studies
equate obesity with too much screen time (this includes TV).
What this leads us to is a good conversation about health,
wellness, eye health, and screen time. It moves us away from the
assumption that screen time is just useless “play” or “entertainment” time. It sets the baseline for helping children begin to cope
with the screens that will be a bit part of their lives going forward.
It is clear that there are many things to take into consideration
when setting your boundaries and rules. From age to actions
taken to purpose to privacy, be sure that as a family you are
thinking about the many different dimensions of communication
technology use as you come up with your family rules.
Now it is Your Turn
There you have it: A living, evolving example of a philosophy and
process in one family. Notice how throughout all my examples,
technology and the tools we choose to use or not use, this is an
ongoing conversation. It has become so ingrained in what my
daughter and I do that we rarely have “formal sit downs” but
44 | tuned - in family
rather short conversations where she introduces me to something
or I help her navigate changes in a social network that she uses.
We have been doing this together for her whole life. Fostering a
conversation-based learning space is not easy with your children
as they grow up. However, with patience and accepting the fact
that as your children grow, they will often know more about
some things than you will, you can move from a power struggle
to helpful conversations.
considering a technology philosophy
| 45
chapter three
creating your family’s technology
philosophy
The first step in developing your family’s technology philosophy
is to think about your own comfort with communication
technology and how you use it.
Forrester Research has developed what they call the “Social Technographics” Ladder to help classify how individuals utilize digital
communication tools. As you think about your own technology
philosophy, this ladder is a great way to consider how you use
digital communication tools in your daily life. Identifying your
primary activities utilizing the ladder will help you have a better
understanding where you and family members find the value in
these tools.
Forrester breaks down activities into these areas:
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Creators: You publish your own blog, upload your own video
content or music that you’ve created, or post your own articles
or stories.
Conversationalists: You post status updates, comment, and
share content via a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter at least once per week.
Critics: You like to post reviews and ratings of products or services, comment on blog posts, contribute to an online forum, or
help edit a wiki.
Collectors: You gather a lot of information from different news
websites, vote for websites online, and add tags to content.
Joiners: You are on a social networking site and have a profile
and visit some other social networking sites. You are more likely
to just read the content than to post and engage a lot.
Spectators: You are an information consumer. You read, you
watch, you listen. However, you don’t really engage or create
your own posts, updates, or content.
Inactives: You are not utilizing any digital communication tools
in the ways outlined above.
As you read through these descriptions, you may see yourself in
several different areas. I fall into many of these roles. I am a
Creator because I publish my own blog. I’m a Conversationalist
because I post status updates and comments on multiple social
networking sites. I’m also a Critic and a Collector. On some sites
I’m a Joiner and I am often a Spectator as well. Perhaps the one
creating your family ’ s technology philosophy
| 47
thing I am not is an Inactive. This is why I’m recommending you
consider a primary inclination and a secondary one as you look
at these categories. In my case, I would say my primary is a
Conversationalist and my secondary is a Creator. Why? Because
I spend more time in conversation than I do in the creation
of content.
Start by Asking and Answering Questions
Now that you have identified this about yourself, add it to the
worksheet in the resources section. It will help you develop
48 | tuned - in family
your overall technology philosophy. As you read what follows,
remember that I see myself as a conversationalist and a creator.
I would peg my daughter as a spectator and conversationalist
with a growing interest in becoming a creator of online
digital communication.
Each person in your family can start by answering a set of
questions that will then spark some great conversation. I have
developed a questionnaire to help you think about how you use
communication technologies in your personal and professional
life that is a good starting point to helping build your family’s
technology philosophy. Begin by answering the questions in the
“Our Family’s Technology Philosophy” questionnaire located in
the resources section. Once you’ve completed it, sit down with
your family and talk through how you each filled it out.
There are no right or wrong answers. Be open and honest and
prepare to engage in a lively discussion. Essentially, this is the
discussion that will form the foundation for your family’s
technology philosophy.
It is in this discussion that you might have to tackle differences
of opinion about areas such as:
• Where does each family member fall on the “Technographics
Ladder”? How does that impact your attitude about online
communication tools?
• Are you a family that is open to technological change? If
parents are comfortable with changes, but tweens in the
household aren’t, how will you address this?
creating your family ’ s technology philosophy
| 49
• Are you more conservative in your approach to allowing new
technologies in the home? What happens if your child has a
strong technological aptitude? How will you foster this while
still being true to your family values?
• Are you education-centric and want just educational
applications in your home? If so, how will you compromise
with the gamer in the family?
• Are you concerned about privacy and security? How will you
all agree on content that you will share, or not share? How
will the impact family passwords or virus protection software,
to name only two examples?
As with all families there is an art and a science to the
compromises that will have to come from these discussions.
Remember that the questionnaire is just a starting point. The
discussion and what comes from it will be how you will develop
your own technology philosophy.
Once you’ve had your discussions it’s time to use the space below
to write down your technology philosophy. Some examples that
might help you include:
As a family, we believe that technology:
• Is an important part of our daily lives. It makes things more
convenient, is a big part of our entertainment, and helps us
to stay connected. As a family we respect that each of us has
a different comfort level with technology and because we
respect each other, we agree to ask permission before posting
content about the family on open social networks. We will
50 | tuned - in family
respect the importance of health and wellness and set
guidelines that will help us all use technology wisely. We will
share our knowledge with each other because technology
always changes.
• While ubiquitous, should be managed carefully. We believe
that all things should be balanced and come in moderation,
and that technology is a tool that can help us get things done,
but it should not be the focus of our lives. Screen time in all
things will be limited, boundaries will emphasize the
importance of face-to-face family time, and we will evaluate
new technologies carefully.
• Helps us stay connected, have fun, and makes our lives easier
and even more engaging. We will explore new technologies
together as a family and evaluate each one as a unique
learning opportunity. We’ll set rules along the way, as we
discover how each tool adds value to the individuals within
the family or the whole family.
Using the examples provided, along with the discussions
you have had as a family write down your family’s technology
philosophy:
As a family we believe that technology:
_______________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
creating your family ’ s technology philosophy
| 51
Hopefully the conversations you and your family have had so far
have been productive and educational. Notice I didn’t say easy.
But now you have more information than you did before.
Whether your family is two adults with no children, or you have
a new baby, or a house with teenagers in it, or an extended
family, you now know more than you did about each other’s
points of view on technology use and adoption. You may even
have had some surprises.
Two things to keep in mind going forward:
• Your philosophy will evolve. As technology changes, as you
have new experiences, as your children grow, your family
philosophy will evolve and change. Nothing here is carved in
stone, and you should be prepared to adjust and revisit this
questionnaire and philosophy formally and informally over the
years to come.
• Your philosophy is just a starting point. What you’ve done so
far is set the foundation. Next, a set of guideposts will help
you build your overall framework, followed by the true “how
to” part of this book, based on the ages of your children.
Remember to come back to your philosophy statement when
you get stuck. Think of it as airport runway lights. It will guide
you, but you have a lot of room to adjust as needed.
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chapter four
/
guidepost one
taking stock–
our social media/technology inventory
Before you can figure out what your social sharing content plan
is you first have to take stock of what tools you and your family
are using right now. As of this writing there is a plethora of social
sharing site and online spaces and chances are you and your
family members are utilizing some of them. Chances are also
good that no one is using ALL of them! Using the “Technology
and Social Media Inventory” form in the resources section, make
a list of all the sites you are currently active on and what you use
them for.
For example here is a list of some of the social media, blogging,
and gaming websites I use:
Facebook to connect with family, friends, students, professionals.
LinkedIn to connect with and learn from students and
professionals in my field.
Twitter to connect with and learn from professionals, as well as
get news and information.
Instagram to share pictures of food with my friends.
Pinterest to share content that is useful for my profession.
Wordpress to blog about my experiences as a professor.
taking stock – our social media / technology inventory
| 53
Cat Moji to connect and share information about cats.
YouTube to watch how-to videos, find content for my classes,
and create videos for my classes.
World of Warcraft to have a recreational outlet.
Once you have your list, you have to decide how you will
categorize each one. For example, is it for sharing with friends?
Is it for your family? Is it professional? Here are some categories
I suggest, but you can probably come up with others that better
fit you and your family:
• Professional connections and networking
• Sharing of personal and life events with family and friends
• Sharing of fun images with family, friends and extended networks (not friends I know face to face)
• Sharing of information for professional connections and
others, including family and friends
• Information gathering for professional life
• Staying connected to friends and family
• News
• Fun
• Entertainment
I would then fill out the template in the resource section, like this:
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Website/Tool
Purpose
Person Category
Notes
Facebook
Sharing content,
Family, Close
Also use for
staying connected to
Friends, Friends
professional.
friends and family,
and Current and
gathering news,
Former Students
entertainment
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Sharing content,
Professional
Mainly
professional network-
connections,
professional
ing, gathering of news
Current and
focus.
and information
Former Students
Professional
Professional
networking
connections
Creating of How-to
Professional:
videos for classes
Students only.
As you can see from my example above, mapping out each of
the tools provides a great picture of the tools you are currently
using, how you use them and why you are using them.
taking stock – our social media / technology inventory
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Digital Communication Tool Landscape
Once you have a good understanding of your digital communication tool landscape you can then decide which of these tools
is best for sharing information about you and your family with
the appropriate people.
Knowing the purpose of each tool for each of your family
members will help you all to better respond to interface changes
and the changes that come when the companies are sold or
bought and when their privacy and security settings change.
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Now that I have completed the audit, I know that if I want to
post a status update about one of the classes I teach, I more than
likely will post it on LinkedIn and on Twitter as they are more of
a professional network focus for my work. But, if I want to make
sure I reach my students because the update is about something
we are doing in class that week, I would probably also share it
on Facebook. Conversely, if what I have to say is about myself
personally then I probably will only post that on Facebook.
It is also very helpful for you to include your immediate family in
this process, especially if you have siblings, parents, and parentsin-law who might be tagging you in posts, sharing information
about themselves, or posting content about your family or
children or even pets!
You could easily fill out the Technology and Social Media audit
template for your immediate family building a visual of your
social media ecosystem. For example, if we did one for my
daughter, we would see that her use of Facebook is probably
quite a bit different from my use of Facebook. The same goes for
Twitter and for YouTube. While I use YouTube in my classes to
post how-to videos, she uses YouTube to consume content. It is
unlikely that we would share content with one another via YouTube because our uses are so dramatically different.
Once you have completed the audit, you are ready to decide
which websites and online tools you and your family will use to
share content about yourselves and each other. It means you can
now practice content segmentation. In other words, how you will
decide what to post, where, and more importantly, for whom
to see.
taking stock – our social media / technology inventory
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chapter five
/
guidepost two
creating our content sharing plan
The purpose of segmenting your content is simple. As a family,
what will you share about each other? Where will you share it?
The process for doing this takes some getting used to, but it is
modeled on what marketers do when considering how to
distribute their messages to consumers.
Essentially, marketing professionals consider who their target
market is based on who is most likely to find value in their
products or services. They then come up with a messaging
strategy that includes how they will reach their target market. For
example, they might decide that because their target market
wis more receptive to emails about specials, they will focus on
creating interesting and fun emails.
As you consider who you want to share content with online, if
you think like a marketer, you will find yourself more quickly and
easily able to segment your messages and content by the target
audience and digital tools.
Building Your Child’s Permanent Record
At this point you might be wondering: why is this important?
Earlier in the book I mentioned social media expert Amy Jo Martin’s point that children are building their personal brand at an
earlier and earlier age. The communication technology tools we
have access to as I’m writing this book are powerful; they create
a digital footprint of who we are, what we like and what we
don’t like. When we include our children, and sharing content
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about them, it is hard to think that what we share about them
today on the Internet, is becoming part of their “permanent
record.” But it is doing exactly that.
Parenting is a big responsibility. Want to add an even bigger
responsibility to it? Consider this: what you decide now about
how you will share content about your child will follow them into
adulthood as it never has before. You are starting the digital
footprint of their life.
Every tool you use to share content about them has the potential
to make that content public, to link it to other data about your
child, and to create paths to discovering more about you as a
family for marketing purposes or security reasons.
So rather than ask, “Why should we segment our content?” it is
better to ask, “Why don’t we segment our content?”
It really isn’t as intimidating as it sounds.
Creating Your Social Map
Imagine your personal network. Even if you think of this as nondigital, you can see the many connections you have between
family, community, and work. Now consider how this is amplified
in an online context.
Your connections reach further because social communication
tools make it easier to stay connected and content online is
designed to be easily shared. Tools like Facebook and Instagram,
a photo-sharing network owned by Facebook, are designed with
sharing in mind. It is part of the company’s revenue model. What
creating our content sharing plan
| 59
makes this powerful is that unlike the traditional game of
telephone that so many of us have played where we see how
quickly our original message can take on new meanings the
further along the network the message travels, today’s social
tools allow us to maintain the originality of our message. So, if I
take a picture of my cat, and share it with my networks, they can
share it with their networks, but the image remains essentially
the same unless someone intentionally modifies the file.
Let’s take a look at what your social map could look like:
service,
school &
community
your
family
friends
professional
groups with
multiple links
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In this illustration, the center is you. Your many connections
range from family to friends, to professional colleagues, and your
community, school, and any service organizations you participate
in. You may also belong to a gaming community or a blogging
community that is connected to a wide range of other individuals.
As you think about each of the groups you are connected to,
think about how they might be connected to each other. For
example, in the illustration above, there are connections between
family and friends. This one is easy to think about in both a nondigital and digital context, isn’t it? You can invite your friends
over to see the home video of your family’s trip the Grand
Canyon. Or, you can invite your friends to your YouTube account
to view your video of that same trip. There might be connections
between friends and professional networks and more than likely
there are connections between your friends and your school or
community networks.
Notice the arrows that lead away from each of the groups you
might be connected to in the illustration. Those symbolize all the
connections each of those groups might have that could impact
where your content and information are shared. Now think of
your immediate family. Consider a social map for each individual
and how your family information is suddenly, exponentially
spreading out into the digital universe.
Depending on the age range of each of your immediate family
members you will see those individual’s networks expand. For a
small child there will probably be fewer network connections,
perhaps just to family. However, as your children get older and
go to school their digital network will expand. They will join clubs,
get involved in sports activities, and gain more friends.
creating our content sharing plan
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Depending on their school, they will begin to use cloud services
such as Dropbox or Google Drive to store and share schoolwork.
If your children enjoy playing video games, they may join forums
and online spaces devoted to the games they are playing, and
they will interact with a growing number of people whom they
have never met in person.
What I’m asking you to do with this thought process is to
consider carefully just how far every piece of content you share
can reach in an online environment. Just how far do you want
that content to go?
Online Social Circle
Consider this example of a simple Facebook status update. As of
the writing of this book I have over 600 “friends” on this
popular social network. Because I have opened my Facebook up
to public access I also have over 70 followers. These are
individuals I do not know, but who are interested in my public
updates. When I choose to post a status update and I make it for
friends only, I must take into consideration that anyone
designated as a “friend” has the potential to see it, comment on
it, and share it with their friend networks.
This list of friends includes my daughter, my immediate family,
extended family, close friends, friends, colleagues, former
co-workers, as well as current and former students. Once I post
that status there is no controlling where it goes, since someone
could post it somewhere else very easily. Too often we consider
social networks and online content websites as closed systems or
“walled gardens” that prevent content from being shared
between them. This can’t be farther from the truth. What
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marketers have learned, individuals must now learn: you cannot
control the message once you put it out there.
private
The less you share, the more private it is. As the illustration below
shows, your content moves along a private to public continuum.
Just like when you share something in a face-to-face context, the
more people you tell something to, the more public it becomes.
me
my
family
extended
family
close
friends
friends
service
professional
public
community
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So what does this mean for your family? It means becoming very
aware of the implications for the content you share and how you
choose to share it. Remember to always think of your content on
a scale of private to public as shown in the illustration. This is why
starting now to figure out what you will share and what you will
not share is so important.
Thinking through a content filtering process will help you do just
that. In the resources section you will find a worksheet to help
you through this process. Some fundamental questions to ask
include:
• What information will we not share online? This can be anything from phone numbers and addresses to specific types of
content, such as pictures of your children, your home, or new
purchases.
• Who will you share what information with? For example,
think about pictures of your children. You might be fine with
sharing those pictures with your immediate family and close
friends, but you might not want to share them with anyone
else. You may even go so far as to segment your children’s
pictures into those that you will share more publicly, such as
little league pictures and event pictures, but milestones like
losing the first tooth may be only for close friends.
• Where will we share information? This is where your audit
comes in. Using the example above, if you have a Facebook
account and Flickr (a photo sharing site) and you write your
own blog, each of these tools probably fall on your “private”
to “public” spectrum. Facebook may be a space you share
with your close friends and friends, your Flickr account may
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be private for just family, and your blog may be completely
open online for anyone to read. A picture of your child in their
team little league photo might be something you would post
on Facebook (or share, because the little league team has
already shared it), but the missing tooth might go on Flickr,
and you never post pictures of your children on your blog.
Hopefully these examples and the process map will help you
come up with your family’s content and sharing plan. This
process asks you to think about your content in the context of
an overall sharing plan. Use the template for:
Type of content: Are you sharing a picture or a link to something?
Purpose: What is the purpose for sharing your content? Is it to
celebrate something? Is it to stay connected to family and
friends?
Audience: Who is your intended audience for your content? Is it
your co-workers, the public, or your family?
Permission: Do you have permission to post this content? Do
you need someone’s permission? I’ll get more into the
importance of this idea later in the book. Basically, it is always
polite to ask first if you plan on posting content about someone
other than yourself.
Level of privacy: How private should this content be? How public
can it be?
How will you share this content: Is this better emailed to a select
group of individuals? Use your technology audit to determine
creating our content sharing plan
| 65
which social tool you use would be the best place to share this
content.
To post or not to post: The final step is to decide if you should
post the content online at all. All of the other steps lead to this
point which is your final decision mark. Remember, once you post
it...it’s out there.
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chapter six
/
guidepost three
creating an access plan
and setting the ground rules
When all is said and done, one of the biggest challenges parents
face when it comes to digital communication technologies is
knowing which tools are most appropriate for their children and
for themselves.
Why?
Because the tools themselves change every day. New advances
bring new conveniences and greater ease of use and sharing.
Your children’s schools may introduce a new learning
management system that allows you access to grades and
information, a new video game entices your child, an upgraded
cell phone operating system adds more bells and whistles.
Keeping up is hard enough for yourself, but add in the
responsibility of your children and it becomes even more complex.
Use PAVER
A simple way to assess the appropriateness of a digital
communication technology for your family is to run it through
the following test, which I call “PAVER”. Think of it as paving
your way to technology success.
Purpose: First determine the purpose of the tool. Is it a word
processing software? Is it an application that helps you check the
weather? Is it a console game? Is it a social network?
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and setting the ground rules
| 67
Age Appropriateness: Then, is it age appropriate? Is your child
mature enough to handle the environment and user interface?
Can they manage the responsibility of the tool?
Value: Next, assess the value of the tool for the family. Does it
provide entertainment? Is it educational? Does it allow for ease
of connection for your family?
EULA: Then be sure to read the End User License Agreement
(EULA). This is where the company that makes the product lays
out the legal implications for use of their product/service and
they tell you limitations as well as what they do with content.
Be sure you agree with EULA and are willing to conform
to requirements.
Reviews/Resources: Finally, take some time to read reviews, view
videos, and utilize resources to learn more about the tool so you
are educated.
I’ve provided an overview of PAVER in the resources section, as
well as a blank template that you can use to fill out for each of
the technology tools you would like to assess.
Now that you have a complete picture of the tools you are
currently using, how you will share content, and how you can
assess the tools that come into your lives, your final step is to
come up with a set of rules of use for the family.
As I wrote earlier, when it comes to managing the communication
technologies and tools in your family, the rules of use are an
important component to teaching best practices, respect, and
appreciation for what the tools can accomplish. They are also
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useful for dealing with the issues that can come with these tools.
From health issues caused by too much screen time to user
immaturity and misunderstandings of what content is private or
not, individuals run into issues all the time.
Setting strong ground rules within your family is the fastest way
for your family as a whole to better appreciate the tools and
respect the boundaries you all set together. These ground rules
will need to be revisited and discussed often, especially if you
have teenagers in the home!
Ground Rules
While each family will need to determine the ground rules that
work best for them, I’ve compiled a list of recommendations that
I have utilized within my family. I’ve also provided a chart in the
resources section that you can work with as you develop your
own rules.
The “real friends” rule: When engaging in any online social
context the rule for your children until they are older teenagers
should be the “real friends” rule. Whether it is video games
(computer or console), social networks, music services or even
texting, making sure everyone in the family understands the
difference between real friends and virtual friends is important.
The sooner young children understand this, the better off they
will be as they grow older.
Read the EULA rule: We all have to do a better job on this one
Often the “legalese” can seem overwhelming, and we just click
the box and move on. However, there are many interesting
things buried in the EULA, such as who owns the content you
creating an access plan and setting the ground rules
| 69
post, age restrictions, privacy information, and how they use data
collection to manage marketing and advertising efforts. All of this
information is very important in a society that is moving more
and more toward 24/7, always-on access.
What’s the value rule/Tell me why rule: This rule becomes more
critical as children get older. But start them young and have them
explain why a new tool would be valuable for them or why they
need it. This is one that I have employed with my daughter a
great deal—the fine print on it is that “because my friends are
doing it” is not a good reason. This is also a good way to ask
them if they’ve read the EULA (reinforcing rule #2 above).
Ask my permission rule. As we take sharing for granted we often
forget that each of us has a different threshold for privacy and
sharing. Making this a family rule means that all of you must ask
permission before posting images or information about one
another in social contexts. This is another one that will become
more obviously important as your children get older. Giving them
a sense of control over what you post and where you post sets a
great foundation for some good conversations. It’s how my
daughter and I have been operating for quite a few years now. I
respect her privacy and her wishes on what I post on my social
networks about her, especially with pictures. She does the same
for me.
Screen time rule. Rather than set time limits with the assumption
that all screen time is “play time” emphasize the importance of
walking away from screens for health reasons. Extended time in
front of a screen, whether it is for homework, watching movies,
or playing video games is not healthy for the eyes, mind, or body.
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Taking breaks, moving around, and changing your “visual inputs”
are the foundations for this rule.
These five basic rules have been very useful for my daughter and
me. Perhaps you as a family will come up with more rules that fit
your needs better. Use these as a starting point, and talk through
the consequences for breaking the rules. And remember,
everyone in the family (including parents) need to adhere to the
rules and take the consequences for breaking them. We’ve had
consequences that range from permanent loss of access to a
social network to having to remove content from social media.
Use the worksheet template I’ve provided in the resources
section to help you with formulating your rules for your family.
creating an access plan and setting the ground rules
| 71
introduction
part two: ages and life stages
Now that you have completed the first section of the book, you
have all the building blocks you need to apply them to your
specific family situation and children. The rest of the book is
devoted to exploring the specific situations that will likely arise
based on your children’s ages and life stages.
From the moment you find out you are going to be a parent to
watching your children graduate from high school and leave
home, the sections that follow provide guidance and factors to
consider at every stage.
I begin with helping soon-to-be and new parents explore some
specific steps to take to prepare for the new person in their lives,
then I move into specific development stages: birth to three, four
to eight, nine to twelve, thirteen to seventeen, and eighteen
and beyond. While each section can be read independently,
depending on the ages of your children, practices that are recommended early on carry through and are built upon as the
sections address older children.
Feel free to read through the whole section, or turn to those
chapters that apply directly to your child. I would recommend
that if you have more than one child and they fall in different age
ranges that you read through all of Part Two first so you can fully
consider all the implications.
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chapter seven
oh my! we are going to have a baby!!
Perhaps one of the most joyous moments in life is the moment
when people find out they are going to have a child. Whether
you are a couple or an individual, whether that child is coming
naturally or via other methods like adoption, whether that child
is a brand new baby or a toddler or a teen, one thing’s for certain:
your life is about to change.
I can remember like it was yesterday announcing to family and
friends that we were expecting. At that time, I used the
telephone to share the news with family and friends who were
not local. Today, because of the many different communication
technologies we have access to, we can share this exciting news
in various ways.
Let’s face it: this is a time of great excitement, wonder, and well
wishes. Who wouldn’t want to share their joy? It’s a natural
impulse to share with our friends the excitement of having
children, of watching them develop. This pride and desire to
share has always been there, but today’s tools allow us to share
images and conversations like never before.
As a friend of many of my former students, I’ve watched on
various social networks as they have started their families and I
feel like I’ve had a front row seat, from the first sonogram
pictures to the first moments of life to the first tooth. On one
hand it is amazing to be given that opportunity to see how these
individuals I knew as students have grown, succeeded, and are
oh my ! we are going to have a baby !!
| 73
building their families. On the other hand, it does beg the
question about just how much I should really be seeing.
Recall that many of our current online social networks emphasize
connections to family and friend groups. Depending on your own
philosophy of creating content that is shared on these websites,
you might be perfectly comfortable sharing many things with
those you have put in your “family” group or your “friend”
group. But now, as you begin your family, it might be a good
time to think carefully about just who those people in your
“friend” groups are, and to ask yourself if you are comfortable
with sharing information about your child with all of these
people?
Consider this scenario: You are at your first sonogram. As a
couple you are looking at the images that are coming up and
your partner snaps a quick cell phone picture to capture the
moment. But what happens if they weren’t really thinking
because of their excitement and used a tool like Instagram, which
is often connected to other social networks such as Facebook and
Twitter? Suddenly all of your partner’s family and friends (and
even friends of friends, depending on the settings in the
application) are sharing this moment with you.
The question to consider is: does that scenario bother you or not?
If you both are fine with beginning your child’s digital footprint
in this way, then it is ok. But what happens if one of you isn’t?
Perhaps one of you wanted to share the picture privately with
just a few family members. In this simple example we find how
easily and quickly a misunderstanding can happen with our
always-on, digitally connected society.
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This is when it’s time to have some important conversations
about what you currently share and what communication
technologies you prefer to use, what type of content you would
like to post about your child, and where would you like to post
it. Coming to agreement now and talking through hypothetical
situations will be far easier than later trying to retract content that
you posted online.
A New Technology Philosophy for Your New Arrival
So, what are some steps you can take right now to get ready for
your new arrival?
• Create or revisit your technology philosophy. If you don’t
already have a technology philosophy clearly stated, now is
the time to create one. If you already have one, as you get
ready to add a new person to the mix consider if anything has
changed.
• Complete the Technology and Social Media Inventory. What
tools are you currently using and for what purpose? This
process will help you decide which online communication
tools will be the right places to share content about your child
and which ones won’t be.
• Build your Content Sharing Plan. You can make up your own,
or you can follow the template I’ve provided in this book. This
plan will help you set the groundwork for supporting
your technology philosophy and help you set the digital
communication foundation for your new family. One reason
why this is so important at this stage is you need to be clear
on what you will post on social sharing networks.
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| 75
• Ask questions about how you will share this amazing experience with your family and friends. It’s only recently (consider that 16 years ago, I could announce my daughter’s birth
via email and that was considered cutting edge!) that we
would even have to have this conversation, but as digital tools
and access to real-time content become ubiquitous, it is a
conversation you will need to have.
• What type of content will you share with family and friends?
Will it be text updates, pictures, audio, video? Will you blog
about your experience? Will you live tweet the birth, or even
do a real-time Google Hangout for those family members
who can’t be there? It is all possible. The question is, what is
your comfort level with it?
• As part of this conversation, consider how often you will
want to share pictures and status updates? Some people will
share content five or more times per day, others will post once
per week. What is your comfort level with how often you will
share your information?
Before a new family member arrives is the time to make decisions
on what will be shared online and/or digitally, and what will
not be shared. Come to agreement now and make sure the
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings are all on board as well.
As you have your conversation, I’ll ask you to remember that
picture of you that your parents took oh so many years ago.
You know the picture I mean. The one that if anyone saw it when
you were 12, or 16, or 25 made you cringe, the one that does so
even today. Mine is one where I’m naked, sitting on the potty
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chair, playing a plastic guitar. What my students would give to
have that picture plastered all over the Internet. Thankfully, when
I was young there was no Internet! My parents couldn’t share
that exceedingly cute (yet deeply embarrassing) picture of me
with all their friends, unless they dug out the pictures at a party.
With that in mind what will you share and where will you share
it?
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chapter eight
congratulations! you have a child!
birth to three years old
Between the ages of brand-new and three years old, there is so
much that happens in your child’s life. From turning over for the
first time, to eating solid food, to teething, sleeping through the
night, walking, talking, and potty training.
It’s an amazing journey. Throughout time, parents and family
members have shared their joy during these moments. At
gatherings and parties, in pictures and in conversations we have
come together to share experiences and joyful moments. It’s
what we do as parents and it’s natural, normal, and should not
change. The difference today is that you have the ability to share
each and every joyous moment, the frustrations, fears, and questions with all your friends (and even strangers) – in an instant.
You can add to that things like playing with apps on your phone
or iPad, mastering the remote control for the TV, playing on
digitally enhanced toys, and playing their first video games.
You can also now monitor your child on cameras that provide a
live feed to the Internet so you can log in from work and see how
they are doing.
As the tools become more sophisticated and seamlessly woven
into our lives, it becomes even harder to pause and consider the
implications of sharing and using these tools. We never had that
consideration in our lives as children, but times have certainly
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changed, forcing us as parents to temper our enthusiasm with a
healthy dose of intentionality.
Putting the Technology Philosophy to Work
Think about the impact of digital communication tools on
the information you will share about your child. How will your
children learn to interact with technology and how will you as a
family evolve together as the tools change and your child grows?
Here is your first test. If you have completed the technology
philosophy, technology, and social media inventory, and content
sharing plan, you should easily be able to answer these questions:
• SHOULD I really share every picture of my child?
• WHERE will I share the content that I want to share with my
family and friends?
• WHAT do we, as a family, agree that we will not share?
• THINK What is the digital footprint I am building for my child
at a time when my child has no say or control of the process?
What behaviors will I model for my child so they will become
respectful members of a digital society?
How did you do? Were you able to easily answer the questions?
As your child develops and grows, each year you should take
some time to revisit your technology philosophy and be sure you
still all agree, and revisit the sharing/content plan that you came
up with before your child arrived. As your child grows and as the
tools available change, you will also need to adjust and change.
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This is the vital component of putting your technology
philosophy into action and acknowledging the fluid nature of
communication technologies. It is the building blocks to
becoming and remaining a digitally-savvy family.
It’s now time to develop your family’s technology access plan and
begin to develop the ground rules for use of different tools. Use
the templates that are provided in the back of the book, and
revisit the chapters in Part One of this book to refresh your
memory on what to do.
This is a new developmental phase for your child and for your
family. Here you will want to lay out:
• The tools you will allow your child to play with/play on
• How much “screen time” they will have as a developing
babies or toddlers
• What tools will you use as parents to simplify your lives,
stimulate your child’s growth and development and what
things do you plan on avoiding?
• The behaviors you will model for your children
Consider the gamut—from TV, to computer games, to online
experiences, to mobile applications. Essentially, it is time to put
your technology philosophy into action.
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Tech Baby-Proof
Now think about other things you have done as you became a
parent, including the way you “baby-proofed” your home, or
how you showed them the safe way to cross the street or play in
the yard. These are all ways in which you teach your child to be
safe and happy. Teaching them about technology use is really no
different. If you are using Skype, and your toddler sees you using
it, is it any different than using a video camera that they play with
and enjoy?
With all of this equipment now available in the palm of your hand
in a smartphone, waiting until your child is the double digit age
to have the conversations and set the groundwork is far too late.
Take a minute and revisit your technology and social media
inventory. Have you included . . .
•
•
•
•
Mobile apps you now use to entertain your child?
Video monitoring software that is Internet-based?
TV/video screens they watch while you are in the car?
Toys that are technology-oriented?
Take a few minutes now to start that foundation in a meaningful
way for your little one. Trust me, it will be much easier now than
it will be later.
I believe strongly that if you are to raise digitally-savvy children
you have to start early.
Of the parents I surveyed, most had rules and guidelines in place
for their children who were ten and up but very few had any
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rules or guidelines for the younger ages and certainly not for
birth to three. The main response of those parents was very
simple: “they aren’t old enough to use the tools yet or have
accounts.”
On the surface this makes perfect sense—until you step back and
think about the tools you use daily and what your child has
access to. Look around you and identify all of the communication
technology tools that you and your family are using right now.
Consider the behaviors around these tools that you are modeling
for your children.
Tip
Privacy and the ability to segment your content so that it can be
shared with specific groups of people is an important feature to
look for in your content-sharing choices when your children are
this young. Make sure that you understand how your child’s image
might be used, which are the individuals will see your content, and
who can tag, share, or comment on content about your child.
For example, as of this writing, many young parents I know are
sharing a great deal of content about their children via Facebook.
Facebook currently allows you to group people into a family or
close friends group which allows you to post specific content from
your status update directly to just those people. If you are using
Facebook, are you segmenting your posts in that way? In any tool
you choose to use be sure to look for strong privacy settings, ones
where you can decide what to share with which groups, where you
have control over tagging, sharing, comments.
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chapter nine
welcome to the school years!
ages four to eight
What an exciting time in your child’s life! Ages four to eight
brings a wide range of firsts. From the first day at school to the
first opportunities to play on sports teams in local community
pee-wee leagues, it’s a time of growth, exploration, and slowly
moving away from parental control.
Depending on the school your child goes to, they may be
given access to digital tools for learning, including online file
repositories, school-based social networks for posting homework
and discussions, and even email accounts.
As one parent of a six-year-old explained, “My daughter’s
kindergarten teacher maintains a class blog and a class Twitter
account. Both have been great ways to engage the children with
technology. My daughter has been excited to see photos of
herself and her classmate on the blog—and has tweeted a photo
of something she made at home to show her teacher at school.”
It seems still too early to begin setting guidelines for your child,
and yet, parents I surveyed have already begun to see how much
their children at this age take pride in the “digital refrigerator
pictures” that their parents share on their social networks.
This parent of a six-year-old explained the excitement: “The first
time I showed my child that I posted his memorable moment
online, it was much like posting his artwork on the refrigerator in
our house. Big smiles and a sense of pride came over our child.”
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Let’s face it, we all feel a sense of connection when we post
something online and we get positive feedback. Our children and
stories of our children are no different.
Public and Private Ground Rules
Children are accessing educational games and websites that
provide educational games; apps that run on smartphones and
tablets that boast of their educational value. Some eight year olds
have their own cell phones! Others might already be engaging
in online social networks that are designed to connect them with
children. Large brands such as Nickelodeon and Disney have
websites that are specifically designed to provide engagement
opportunities for children at this age.
You may have set your ground rules, but what about the rules at
the daycare or the preschool or the school or the little league?
What about other families where your children play? What about
the babysitter? I have seen at least one example where the
babysitter took images of the children she was babysitting and
posted them on Twitter. I wonder how the parents felt about
that...or if they even knew!
The ubiquitous nature of sharing photos of those amazing
moments, and apps that allow quick videos to be instantly posted,
all provide opportunities to express pride in those shining
occasions, but at the same time, also show children ways in
which content can be easily shared without permissions.
Even at this tender age, you’ll need to begin setting the
expectations and managing your ground rules for your children
by asking the following questions:
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WHEN can my child start engaging in social content and
games, including apps on smartphones?
This is when PAVER really helps to make a difference.
Gather information from resources to find out what the age
appropriate social games are and make a list of them. A great
resource for this is CommonSenseMedia.org, a site that provides
a wide range of wonderful recommendations on age-appropriate
games and apps with helpful reviews.
This is also a great time to talk with your child’s teachers. Find out
what games they have available for your child in school and what
they might be asking for homework. We remember bringing
home worksheets and pictures to color. While children will still
have that, there are digital options now. This is also a time to
check with your local library as well as your friend networks to
see if they have any recommendations.
WHAT ground rules will we set as a family? What
consequences will there be for not following the rules?
What incentives will there be in following them?
If you haven’t already set ground rules as discussed earlier in the
book, now is the time to do it. One of the parents I surveyed has
this technology strategy: “We do have general guidelines for
time, but it isn’t fixed. It depends on what we are doing with
technology. For example, a learning app on the iPad doesn’t
come under the same tight time restrictions as apps that do not
have a strong focus on learning.”
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This parent’s process gets right to the heart of what we used
to view as recreational vs. educational. Given the nature of
educational applications and websites, coupled with the
emphasis many schools place on digital technologies, you will
need to ask yourselves if a “screen time limit” is the best way to
go. Or, like this family, is it all about the context and what is on
the screen? Is your emphasis going to be on healthy screen time
with breaks in between no matter what is being done? There is
a large difference between playing video games and using
educational software to help with homework. Keep the following
in mind as you consider options for your children:
• Read the EULA. By now you can see just how important it is
that you read the EULA. I’ve emphasized this already. It is so
easy to take a quick look and then say ok, then let your
children play an online game. If it is educational it’s got to be
ok, right? Actually, maybe not! Many free online game sites
are supported by advertising, and most if not all game sites,
applications, and consoles have End User License Agreements
(EULA). As you set the ground rules for your children, it’s
important that you are fully aware of the EULA, privacy settings, and how to manage some of the social games and
online spaces. Even for school-based content, be aware of
what they can share and what they can’t and what the
privacy and security settings are. This may feel overwhelming
at first, but use your resources to help you. In addition, if it is
school-based, ask the individuals in charge really good
questions about the privacy and security of the site.
• Play the games/access the sites yourself. When my daughter
was young and I started introducing her to educational games
both online and via CD, I always played them first. This
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allowed me to help her when she got “stuck.” It also
prepared me to know whether certain areas would be scary
or if we would need to talk about issues that might come up.
With the sophistication of the games that children can now
play, whether it is on a console like the Xbox or social games
on Facebook, arming yourself with as much knowledge as
possible, regardless of your child’s age, is very important.
• We know how impressionable and open to suggestions our
children are at the young ages of four through eight. Play the
game through. Playing with your children is no different than
setting up a game of Candyland on the floor and playing with
them there, it is just a different environment. Knowing what
they might encounter allows you, as the parent, to have a
better handle on how to respond and how these games fit
into your overall ground rules.
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• Managing distractions. The online environment offers up a
world of distractions. They don’t call it “web surfing” for
nothing. When your children are at this age, you can help
them by limiting the distractions available when they go
online, whether it is from your mobile phone, an iPad, or a
laptop. One parent I know created a special folder of games
for her child on her iPad. That was the only area her child was
allowed to access. Her child knew to go to only that folder
where there were age-appropriate games Mom had downloaded. By putting up walls such as these you can help your
children to process the information that is coming at them
without overwhelming them. It’s a practice that can work for
all of us.
The above items focus predominantly on games because, for
the most part, at this age your child will be interacting with
educational software, online environments that are tied to school
or to a specific TV program, and applications on a mobile device
probably shared by the family. However you will also need
ground rules that address more esoteric concepts including:
• sharing,
• what a user name is, and
• how to maintain a secure password.
This is the time to update your ground rules and content sharing
plan remembering the goal is to have the whole family follow
these. Your practice models the expected behavior for
younger children.
Many of the parents I surveyed are employing at least some of
the five basic rules outlined earlier in the book, including screen
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time, who can be friends online, and consequences. Additionally,
a core group of parents monitored their child’s behavior online.
It is my opinion that monitoring your child’s activity as they learn
to navigate the online world is an important aspect of teaching
them smart surfing practices and what is safe. The ideal age for
this is between four and eight. Setting the baseline that you, as
a parent, will be watching and monitoring their access at this age
will serve you well later. However, the flip side to this is that as
children get older they will want and deserve more control and
less monitoring.
Be prepared to loosen the reins as they mature, show they have
learned how to be safe online, and prove they are responsible.
When monitoring your child’s online activity:
• Decide if you will use monitoring software.
• Who in the family will have access to usernames, passwords,
and account information?
• Will you conduct “spot checks” of email, games, social sites?
• Where will the hardware to access the online games and software be located? Will you have a common area in the home?
When (if ever) will the children be allowed to have access in
their rooms?
• Remember to add all the things you decide to your ground
rules list.
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WHAT will I allow OTHERS to share about my child? Think
daycare, school, sports, friends, the babysitter or nanny.
Coming to agreement within your own family unit, while it will
have challenges, can be easy, especially when you take into
consideration those outside your family. When your children
were very young, there were fewer outside influences on them.
But now, at this age, they are involved in school activities, possibly daycare, community sports, and camps. What’s a parent to
do? Today, when so many of our public institutions have online
content ranging from websites to social media sites that they use
to promote their work and successes, as a parent you need to be
in the driver’s seat about what content is shared that involves
your child. Educational institutions and community sports leagues
and daycare programs should all have release forms that explain
what they can and cannot share about your child.
Consider this situation: Your child is on a pee-wee soccer
league in the community and they take team photos. Are you
comfortable if that team photo goes in the local newspaper?
Does your comfort level change if it is posted on the league’s
Facebook page? If you or your family is tagged in that picture in
some way, does that change your comfort level? Talk about this
within your family and with the organizations where your child
spends their time.
Ask these questions:
• What are you comfortable with other organizations posting
about your child? Pictures? Work they’ve completed?
Their name?
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• Do you feel differently if it is a school event, a camp event, or
a sports event?
• In what situations would you not want your child’s
information shared?
• What release forms have you been given by different organizations and what permissions have you given to these
organizations?
Friends love to share shining moments. Before a situation comes
up about content being shared, be sure to have a discussion with
your friends about what you are comfortable sharing in online
forums about your family. As I’ve already stated in previous
chapters, asking permission fosters respect and an awareness that
online sharing has greater consequences. This is why I believe
that one of the most important rules is that no one should post
any photos, video, or other content in an online environment
unless they get permission from all those involved first.
Having this conversation with your friends will probably open up
a great dialogue and an opportunity to share what all of you are
doing to raise your children in a digitally connected world.
You should help your children have this same conversation
with their friends. It may also be a conversation you can
encourage teachers at the school to have with the children as
they incorporate digital literacy into their curriculum.
WHO will train and monitor my child in school email use?
It may seem hard to believe, but many schools are providing
children with access to email as early as first grade! Many parents
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I surveyed mentioned that their children were getting Gmail
accounts through their schools, with mixed results. One issue
that keeps coming up is the assumption that people understand
how to fully utilize email and manage an inbox. Considering how
busy most working parents are (and I include parents who are
working from the home in this), where will they find the time to
manage their child’s email inbox while trying to manage their
own?
If your child’s school is going to provide email, find out how they
are going to help the children learn how to use it. You will need
to understand what the school will take responsibility for so that
you can address any gaps at home. You should also gather
information from the school on any liability issues, including
email content and attachments.
You’ll need to spend some time each day with your child as you
all get used to this new tool. Successful use of email requires
some fundamentals that you and your family will want to talk
about.
Some specific area to focus on include:
• The basic purpose of email. When should you use email?
What is it good for? In this case, communicating with
teachers and reading communications from teachers is the
main reason.
• The difference between sending something to one person or
to two people or more. How are the “CC” and “BCC” fields
different from the “TO” field? While this may be elementary,
remember that someone has to explain this difference to your
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child. My students have had email for a very long time and I
cannot tell you how many of them have no idea of the
purpose for the BCC field. It is clear they were not taught. It
is good email etiquette when sending one email to a large
group of individuals to send the email to yourself and blind
carbon copy all the recipients so their email address isn’t seen
by everyone on the list. Remember, not all of your friends are
friends to each other.
• What spam is. What does it mean to spam someone? For
example chain letters (which we’ve all gotten in our lives) are
something that your child will probably experience. Explaining
to your child that sending on these types of messages to
friends who haven’t asked for it is spamming them, because
the content is not really personal or a one-on-one message.
• Managing an inbox. How to create folders, how to report
spam, and how to stay organized are all skills we should have
developed by now. If you’ve always had the good intention
to do this, teaching your child will help you get it done too!
Little tricks like these will help you and your child navigate their
first (but certainly not last) foray into email. I’ve included a list of
email guidelines in the resources section of this book.
HOW should I explain “privacy” and “security” to my
child?
The concepts of safety, privacy, and security are difficult to help
a child understand. Much like we need to help them understand
“stranger danger” and what conversations are ok within the
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family but might not be ok with others, we need to help our
children to understand online safety.
Start by putting it in the context of what they know. Talk to them
about sharing information with just their friends and how they
feel if other people have access to that information. Explain that,
just as we protect our own bodies from viruses by washing
our hands and practicing healthy behaviors, there are healthy
behaviors for our technology tools. Be sure to point out to your
youngest ones that digital tools don’t need to be washed the way
we wash our hands though!
In an era when children learn that sharing is a good thing, you
will need to explain that there is a difference between sharing a
toy and sharing personal information online. This is a great way
to approach the concept of privacy. There are some things we
just don’t need to share with everyone. Some things can and
should be private or shared only with family, including home
address, home phone numbers and cell phone numbers, location
information, and family pictures. As always, helping your child
to distinguish between sharing information with someone in
authority, such as a police officer who is there to help them,
instead of a stranger whom they don’t really know, is a nuance
that is as important online as it is in person.
Hopefully your child’s school and teachers are also having this
conversation, but as I pointed out earlier, if they are not, it is up
to you as the parents to have it, based on your family’s values
and beliefs.
The most important aspect of all is that you and your family work
together to adapt and evolve your rules as the tools change and
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as your child gets older. We are all a work in progress—keep this
in mind as you and your child navigate these first steps into the
digital world.
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chapter nine
the tween years: nine to twelve
Between school, sports, friends, and family time, digital
technologies come into play even more as our children get older.
From games, sharing music, and homework to talking, shopping,
and scheduling plans, it often seems like we can’t get away from
all the screen time.
As children move into their preteen years they take on more
responsibility at school and often at home. It’s now time to begin
changing the conversation about technology in the home. Where
before you were more directive, setting rules and monitoring
their activity, now you will have more frequent conversations.
Your children will learn about new technologies from school and
their friends, and will rely less and less on you to find out about
tools.
Schools are already utilizing online tools to provide grading
feedback, discussion forums, and ways to connect with teachers.
There are greater expectations that not only will your child
engage with their school and teachers online, but that you, as a
parent will as well.
As your child moves into middle school, if your experience is
anything like mine, you’ll find yourself often learning about new
tools from them. If you’ve set the right foundation, they’ll tell
you about it. This is exactly how I learned about an online chat
tool called Omegle that my daughter came home and told me all
about. I learned about SnapChat the same way. What new tools
have you learned about because your child has come home
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talking about it? It’s at this age that the foundation you set when
they were younger will really pay off.
If you aren’t engaging in conversations with them, you might
find out about these tools in surprising and even possibly
negative ways.
One parent described observing their child’s friend using Twitter
in a very inappropriate way, with little regard to the open nature
of this particular tool. Twitter is open for anyone to follow you
and while there is a way to set your feed to private, this one
young person didn’t do that. They shared information about their
day and said things in this open environment that were really
best either left unsaid or written in a text, rather than globally
broadcasted to anyone who wanted to read it. When this parent
approached the young person’s mother about it, the mother was
surprised—she didn’t even know her child had a Twitter account.
If that’s not enough to get you thinking about this transitional age
consider these recent trends from the Pew, Internet and American
Life Project about young people ages 12-13:
• 93% access the Internet
• 71% have mobile access to the Internet
• 16% access the Internet mostly on their cell phones
• 89% share their real name on the profile they use most often
• 82% post a photo of themselves
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Questions for your Pre-Teen
While this section is about nine to twelve year olds, you can see
what your children are stepping into at this age. Now, more than
ever my advice is simple: talk to your child. Make the online
experiences just as much a part of your daily conversation as you
do asking them about what happened in school today or with
their friends.
Top-of-mind issues for parents to consider at this stage of their
children’s lives include:
• What social tools will be helpful with their schoolwork?
Online resources such as Kahn Academy and Aleks, along
with tutoring services and online social networks provide
educational resources for your child. Your child’s school might
have access to special online learning networks or even a
special website that your child can access to get homework,
talk with friends about team projects, and even see
their grades.
• How will I monitor my child’s online activities?
Now more than ever, knowing where your child is spending
their time online and how they are spending their time online
is critically important. Many tools are available to help you
monitor your child’s activities online including parental
controls on many gaming consoles, cable providers and even
social networks. As well, specialty software programs can
provide data on what websites your child is visiting.
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Naturally, just talking with them and asking can provide a
wealth of information. For example I noticed my daughter
was spending a lot of time on YouTube. When I spoke with
her about it, I found out that she was watching a variety of
videos, from music, to how to play guitar and piano, to fun
videos with hamsters.
Some families I surveyed have a common room for the
computer. This can work if you discount mobile devices.
• What local resources can help me stay up-to-date and
knowledgeable about the available tools?
I don’t have to tell anyone reading this book that innovation
keeps happening whether we are ready for it or not. It is very
hard to keep up with changes in devices, social networks,
privacy settings, security issues, games and game consoles,
and music. When you add to that changes in how digital
technologies monitor, track, gather data, and provide
advertising and messaging tailored specifically to your online
activities, it’s no wonder so many of us are overwhelmed.
Your children are also overwhelmed. While many of them
connect with their friends via digital technologies, as you talk
with them you will find that they dislike it when the tool they
are used to changes or when its interface is upgraded. You’ll
find that they stick to one or two tools, unless you have a
Content Creator on your hands—someone who utilizes multiple tools.
If you identify resources to help you as your child gets more
involved with digital technologies, you will be better equipped
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to help your child and guide them. Resources like this book
are one place to turn, but also look to your neighborhood and
local colleges as well as online resources. I’ve provided a list
of current resources at the end of this book to get you started.
Other ways to discover local resources include checking
in with your school principal and PTO, looking to local
marketing and PR agencies to find out if they have anyone
who might come speak to parents, and connecting with other
parents in your neighborhood and friend circle to find out
what they know.
• How much control am I willing to give my child—and how
will I know when they are ready?
As a parent, one of the biggest challenges I have had has
been knowing how much control to give my daughter, and
how much direction I need to provide. It’s a delicate balancing
act and what I find over and over again is that when I talk
with my daughter and we communicate well, she’ll tell me
that she wants more control. Then it is up to me to listen, to
provide her with the room she has asked for, but to still be
prepared to step in if needed. I have done a lot of sitting on
my hands at these times.
Parents who responded to my survey also provided some
interesting tips for this age group. One in particular pointed
out the importance of being transparent: “Our children were
given email addresses through the school starting in 1st grade.
Because of that we have always been copied on all of their
inbound communication (a feature set up through Gmail—
forwards right to our email). The kids are fully aware of this.
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We don’t keep it a secret. It helps us to monitor what kind of
communication is coming in from friends, spam or if they
have signed up for sites/things they shouldn’t have.”
Permission Questions and Boundary Control
In addition to the considerations I just laid out, I would strongly
emphasize two additional sets of questions at this stage: the
“what are you doing” questions and the “permission” questions.
After the monitoring of what they are doing, now comes the
foundation for personal responsibility and awareness, along with
boundaries and control. Hence, the permission questions. Your
children are now entering a stage where reciprocity reigns,
especially as they move into their teen years. Here are a few
questions to help you as you start shifting your conversations
that allow your children to have more control:
• What tools are you using for school and for fun? What games
are you playing?
This question provides your children with the opportunity to
teach you something. Be sure you ask out of curiosity and also
ask them to show you and explain how these tools help them,
and how they play the games, and who else is playing them.
As they tell you about them, you can ask them guiding
questions about privacy, security, profiles, and how these tools
and games connect to other social networks. If your
child can’t answer the questions, then you can look up the
answers together.
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• Have you read the EULA for the tool/game?
Find out what your child knows about what they are sharing.
While the following experience comes from a parent of a
younger child, it is a great illustration of the challenges our
children face in understanding the implications of their online
use. “My daughter is still very young and she believes just
about everything she’s told, including from the media, and is
also quite impressionable about what’s ‘cool’ and the ‘everybody else is doing it’ misperception. At this point, she is very
interested in the computer, electronic games, and websites—
but she has no sense there is any reason to be cautious or
have a concern for safety.”
The way we help our children to understand these
implications is to have the conversations that matter and to
show them the legal language behind these websites. Walking
through them together increases your knowledge as well.
• What would you like to do online?
This question helps you get to know the types of things your
child gravitates toward. Your child may be using a tool
like Google Docs to write homework at school and create
presentations, but may prefer to watch and create videos for
fun. As your child expands their use of tools and discovers
new ways to use those tools they will want to experiment.
Depending on your child that may mean keeping their
creations private or making them very public on social
networks. My daughter is much more private, so things she
creates live on her computer and are not shared on social
networks. However, we all know of children who are more
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public in their creations and in this age range, as I’ve already
pointed out, the thrill of having people comment positively
on art, videos, music and writing can be very enticing.
A parent of a fifth grader explained how their child is using
digital tools for both school and play: “My 11-year uses
Google Docs pretty heavily this year for all school assignments. They are also using edmodo.com, a secure social learning network. It has a FB-like user interface. The kids also post
their language arts writing assignments in a blog-type
environment. She just got an iPhone 4 and texts me (and
other family members) a lot. Not a lot of her friends have
phones yet so she isn’t interacting that way. She plays Club
Penguin online and has the membership sometimes, but she
is only allowed to play the friends she knows. She also uses
Skype to chat with her BFF that moved from BTV (Burlington,
VT) to SLC (Salt Lake City). Sometimes they Skype and play
Club Penguin at the same time = a virtual play date.”
As you learn more about what your child enjoys doing online and
you learn about some of the things they are doing through school
and with their friends you will have a greater opportunity to
gauge your child’s readiness to take on even more responsibility.
Naturally, part of this process goes back to permission-based
conversations.
Even though this story is from a parent of a seven-year-old, it is
a great illustration of where we are heading: “My seven-year-old
recently told me that I have to ask his permission before I share
his picture on social media after a friend of ours told him they
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liked his picture that they saw on Facebook. He is taking control
of his own digital footprint!”
I started having similar conversations with my daughter as social
networks became more available. If your child hasn’t already
started talking with you about what you may and may not share
about them, now is the time to begin this conversation. Start by
asking them specifically what you can post about them online.
This direct question is powerful and shows your child that they
are having a say in the creation of their digital footprint. There
are no shades of gray. Children at this age may actually come up
to you and ask you to post something specifically because they
like to read the comments from others. But this question also
allows them to begin to take control of their own content. Ask it
and I guarantee it will be an interesting conversation. The
challenge for us as parents? To actually listen!
Content Sharing between Friends and Family
I’ve talked a little about the external factors at play when
considering what content is shared about your child. If you
haven’t already had conversations with your friends and family
about shared content, social gaming, and current use of social
tools, now is the time. Not only can you come to agreement
about what you are all willing to share, you can begin to tap into
your family and friend network to help monitor tools, keep each
other educated, and share experiences with the ever-evolving
nature of digital communication.
As one parent pointed out: “Aunts, uncles, grandparents and
older cousins will send us an email if they see something that they
are concerned about. It allows a village to keep an eye on these.”
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Ask your friends and family:
• Please don’t share content about my child or their activities
without first asking them permission.
• How do you monitor/talk with your children about digital
tools?
• Would you like to come together as a group to talk about
issues that come up, share what we’ve learned and support
one another?
What to Take Away
As you can see, there are many things to consider during the
fast-changing tween years. While I’ve listed conversations to
have with your children and your friends and family there are also
some very specific actions to take during this time:
• Hold a family meeting where the family agrees on any
changes to earlier decisions. Remember that technology
philosophy? Bring it out again. Check in with your children.
What has changed as they have started to mature? What has
remained the same?
• Begin putting more control and responsibility in the hands of
your child.
• Explore social/digital monitoring tools that will provide you
with information on social media usage, and the language
utilized. The resources at the end of this book will help you,
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but you could also check with your child’s school and other
parents.
• Find out how your child is using digital tools for schoolwork.
What is required, what would help them do better? One of
the conversation starters above gets at this, but don’t hesitate
to reach out to your child’s teachers and school to find out
specifics.
• Make sure you and your child know the privacy/security
settings of the tools being used. Many of the parents I
surveyed along with the 18-26 year olds raised issues of
privacy, security and safety when discussing their concerns
about online content and digital tools.
• Begin more clear and blunt discussions about safety and
security issues.
• Discuss passwords, viruses, bullying, stalking, and begin
to discuss the amount of data they are sharing.
• Talk about how advertising, social sites, and online
gaming sites gather data and information about people
including information shared on social network sites, the
time spent online, what is clicked on, and what games
are played. There are some simple resources available to
help you and your family better understand the implications of sharing your content. For more help on this take
a look at the resource section at the end of the book.
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• Form a friend/parent group at your child’s school, or in your
neighborhood that meets to learn, discuss and support one
another as you navigate the social web with your children.
My biggest advice for this period of your child’s life is to keep the
communication channels open as much as you can, stay in
contact with your child’s school, and approach as much of this
process as you can with an open and flexible attitude. Trust your
children, but at the same time, verify what they are doing. There
is still a great deal they do not understand or know.
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chapter eleven
the teen years: thirteen to seventeen
The teen years—what a wild ride: braces, high school, driving,
college searches, dances, dating, testing, new perspectives, and
first jobs. I’m in this phase right now with my daughter and there
are so many firsts, new responsibilities, and transitions.
At this stage, when it comes to digital communication tools, the
question is when do we transition from rules and a watchful eye
to trusting our children to be responsible, handle the tools with
maturity, and understand the possible pitfalls and potential for
each tool? What boundaries do we set, what guidelines do we
change, and what are the consequences when our children step
outside of those boundaries? This will be different based on age,
because we all know there is a big difference between thirteen
and sixteen, but these are the questions and considerations that
need to be foremost in our minds.
It is during this time when our children fight for independence.
Their digital tools can help both provide them with independence
while at the same time giving parents a sense of being always
connected to them. This feeling can provide a false sense of security, however, and should never substitute for good old-fashioned
face-to-face conversation. That said, some of my best conversations happen via texting, and many parents I’ve spoken to say
the same thing.
This is a time of exploration. Of learning. Of becoming. Of
expressing feelings, being curious, and discovering oneself. Today,
with all of our digital tools, this exploration often happens online
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in blogs, journals, forums, visual mediums and video, in a very
public and open way.
Many of our teens aren’t fully prepared for the implications of
posting their thoughts and feelings via some of the tools we have
today—from Twitter to Facebook to Pheed and Instagram,
Pinterest, YouTube, and Vine—the big challenge is learning how
to censor yourself and hold back, and as we know, many teens
and even adults often struggle with this.
Instant gratification and acknowledgement of feelings is a
powerful rush, and studies show it kicks off endorphins1. These
digital tools have made it easy to express feelings quickly without
thinking about it, so much so that posting content online has
become second nature to many teens. In this landscape we
as parents have to allow freedom and support our child’s
exploration while at the same time helping them understand how
to best express themselves safely in a digital world that changes
and adds new tools every day.
Here are some more statistics from the recent Pew Internet and
American Life Project study on Teens, social media and privacy.
These apply to teens ages 12-17:
• 91% post a photo of themselves
• 71% post their school name
• 71% post the city or town where they live
1 Carpio, 2011
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• 53% post their email address
• 20% post their cell phone number
Overall their findings highlight that teens are sharing more
information about themselves on social media sites than ever
before. When it comes to Facebook, most teens are friends with
people they know from school. Seventy percent are friends with
their parents. A fairly large percentage at 33% are friends with
other people they have not met. Twitter use is growing with teens
and they are actively seeking out other social networks where they
feel they can “better express themselves”1.
Setting a Foundation of Trust
If you’ve set the foundation early on with your children you may
start this process sooner, but it also depends on each individual
child. We know that our children change so much in their teen
years that boundaries and discussions have to be flexible, fluid,
and responsive from day to day. During these years, there is no
“setting it and forgetting it.”
Several stories illustrate the point of balancing trust,
responsibility, and consequences (some of which are beyond any
parent’s control).
One of my colleagues told me about a family friend whose
14-year-old son, a hip hop dancer, had his own YouTube channel
and had started posting videos of himself dancing. He gained
followers and started connecting with young women his own
1 Pew, 2013
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age, who started texting him on his iPhone. As you can imagine
the texts got pretty explicit and the mother found the texts. Her
reaction was to take the iPhone away.
Let’s think about this scenario for a minute. What are the
implications of digital communication tools when it comes to
flirting and making intimate connections? First off, the young
man had an opportunity with these tools to show off a talent.
Getting attention from young women would be a rush, fun, and
perfectly natural.
As a matter of fact, what young person, if they are talented in an
area, doesn’t like to bask in some positive attention? These
digital tools just allow us to do this in a bigger circle. Reacting by
taking the phone away doesn’t really solve this issue. The son
had no control over whether or not these young women would
reach out to him, save for not giving out his phone number, and
potentially the messages could have been coming to him in any
number of ways.
So do you stop your child from expressing themselves
completely? Or do you talk with them about the implications and
how to handle the responses they get? While there is a very real,
quantifiable trail left by these texts and messages, don’t think
that they aren’t having these same conversations face-to-face.
This is a great example of how there are many different
approaches to a situation. My own approach would have been
to sit down with him and look at the YouTube channel, talk
through the implications of posting videos, and see if he was
ready for it. I’d recommend disabling comments, making the
videos private, and only sharing them with friends because You-
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Tube is a wide open network and, in my opinion, fourteen is too
young for this type of full-blown exposure. Then I’d have a
conversation with him about the texting and its implications,
given his age. Depending on how explicit the texts were and
whether they crossed the line into sexting, he would have to
know that there could be dire consequences for his academic
future. If we remember, though, that our teens don’t really
understand this, then we can come from a place of teaching
rather than a place of fear and anger.
Having a set of conversations about how to best approach
expression, and then, following this with a conversation about
how to handle the communication as it comes in honors the
balance. At the same time, the other families involved still have
to be dealt with. It’s a delicate balance fraught with difficulty.
Hence, it is easy to see why taking the phone away is much easier
than having all the different conversations.
But then there are the countless stories of teens tackling big
problems and changing points of view because of digital
communication tools. Using websites like Indiegogo to raise
money for a cause, standing up for their friends, and responding
to bullying and shaming via social tools. For every bad and scary
story there is an uplifting story of support and empowerment.
This is the challenge of the teen years.
Teen Years Digital Tools
Because you have set the foundation for communication over
time, now it’s time to consider:
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• How is my child using digital tools to express their feelings,
worries, interests, affection?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chat rooms, forums
Video
Texting
Blogs
Skype/Facetime/Hangouts
Social networks
Pictures and images
• What tools are they now ready to legally access? (Some, such
as Facebook, have terms of service that clearly state that the
site is for thirteen years and older)
• How will I monitor my child’s behavior online, and how will
this evolve from the time they are thirteen to when they are
seventeen?
• What are the ground rules that I, as the parent will set and
what are the ground rules that my child can set?
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I know that it is very easy for our children to lie to us about their
use of the tools and what games they are playing and who they
are playing them with. What parent hasn’t had to walk that line
and trust their child even when they know their child may take
advantage of that trust?
This is no different than the challenge we face as parents when
our children start driving and you trust that they are, indeed,
going to the movies with their friends and not going to that
drinking party. We cannot control everything. And yes our
children will lie to us, especially during this time of their lives. It’s
a fact. However, keeping communication open and as honest as
possible with clear guidelines can help mitigate some of this.
Conversation Starters
As you have these conversations, be prepared to update your
ground rules, add new tools, and learn together as a family. Here
are a few questions to help you frame some conversations:
• What tools/websites are you now using and why?
This is a non-threatening question in general and you can
have a great conversation about how they use the tools and
asking them how that might be different from email or
texting. For example a tool like Pheed, which launched in
October 2012, is a mobile social network application that
allows users to actually earn money from producing a monthly
“feed.” Your child may have discovered this tool and be using
it. If they talk about it you can find out how this is different
from Facebook for them, why they like it, and then, depend-
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ing on their age, you can then talk about how you would
connect with them on that social tool.
One way to ensure this type of conversation is to set some
basic ground rules when they turn thirteen, specifically, that
when they sign up for a new tool you must be notified. When
the tool is like Pheed, because they can monetize their
content and broadcast it, it’s very important for you as a
parent to know what they are doing so you can help them
through that process, and setting that expectation early
on will go a long way to making these teen years one of
mutual education.
• What are the ground rules YOU would like to set for how
your use of these tools are monitored?
As your child matures, giving them more and more control
about how they are monitored opens up greater opportunity
for the right types of conversations.
Again, my goal is to have open communication channels, and
not ones that are angry and defensive. I know how hard this
is with a teen, but in a digital world it is crucial to keep those
communication lines open. As your child enters the teen years,
talk frankly and openly about why you still need to monitor,
but also allow them more freedom to say how.
For example, I am still friends with my daughter on Facebook,
and I follow her on Twitter. But our agreements are clear and
are driven more by her than by me. There are clear boundaries that I cannot cross—no commenting, no tagging, no liking,
and any posts I make that include her must first be approved
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by her. Also, I search for her on search engines on occasion
and report back my findings. Even for this book, she had
editing rights.
Recently she tweeted something that I knew was a complete
joke based on a conversation we had had about drinking
games. I followed up with her in a face-to-face conversation
about that tweet, talking with her about the impression that
might have given others who didn’t know it was a joke, and
told her that students in other schools have been expelled
for these types of references. I never told her what to do
specifically, but left her to think about it. She deleted
the tweet.
• What ground rules have you set with your friends about how
they will share content about you?
This is a great question to ask a teen. I’ve asked it in sessions
when I’m presenting to teens on how to manage digital tools.
From their responses it’s clear that many are not having the
conversations they need to have with their friends about what
people may share or not share.
As our children discover various tools, they experiment with
them and they never know what a friend may post from a
sleepover or get together. A quick snap of a picture, tagged
with a child’s name, and suddenly they are on a social network for others to see. Talking with your teen about the
respect that they should provide to their friends regarding
these tools should follow easily when you’ve already had a
conversation about the respect you have for one another on
these social tools.
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Conversations like these can go a long way to prevent some of
the bullying that happens on digital media. As we talk to our
teens about the adverse effects of cyberbullying and bullying in
general, getting them to talk with their friends about what they
will share and how they will support one another is a powerful
message at a time when digital tools have a wide reach.
Action Steps
Below are some specific actions I recommend at this stage. These
are actions that should be repeated over and over again at
least twice a year (when you change your smoke detector
batteries, for example) and more informally whenever there is
an opportunity:
• Stay vigilant and hold to the ground rules. Both sides must
respect them. Revisit these rules often but make sure
everyone is clear on what the rules are and how they change.
• Come together as a family to discuss the ground rules
and how you will all stick to them. Keeping those lines of
communication open at all times will help you all to be as
honest as possible and deal with issues as they come up.
• Begin “check-in” conversations with your child. This can be
organized or unorganized but should happen often. Conduct
random acts of conversation about the tools. Weave them
into dinner talks, ask your child to comment on an article,
encourage them to share things they’ve heard. Come together
as a family to discuss the tools as much as possible.
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• Continue the parent group with increased emphasis on
sharing stories, keeping one another informed and learning
new tools. Enlist the help of the school as well. As parents we
do not need to be passive in all of this. We are busy earning
a living, sometimes working more than one or even two jobs.
We can only do the best we can do and we rely on the school
to help too. As I noted earlier, it takes a village and your child’s
school, while not the whole answer (as a parent I would never
abdicate my responsibility for nurturing and guiding my child
to the school) is certainly a big part of the equation since your
child spends so much time there.
• Use the Internet to help you and your child monitor what is
being said about them, and where this information shows up.
It will also help your child discover old accounts that they
might want to delete. These tools are not about monitoring
your child’s activity on their computer or online or what they
are doing with a particular tool or account. Rather they are
about the content about your child that is being posted online
from different sources, which may include content your child
posted. For example, I always get an alert when I publish my
blog as well as alerts when others mention me.
• Set up a Google Alert on your child’s name. Google
provides a great tool where you can plug in a keyword or
key phrase and get email alerts when something is posted
online. Make one for yourself and for your child. Use
their full name and ask them about the user names they
use for their social accounts as well. This is a great way
to see news articles that may be posted about your child’s
achievements in school, as well as other (perhaps less
welcome) content.
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• A current tool called Social Mention quickly scans for content/postings in social media that may include your
child’s name. Facebook updates, blogs, and other content
that Google or Bing may miss can be found this way as
well.
Tip
These tools are different from monitoring tools that will monitor
your child’s account. These are social media tools that will show
you content that is being posted online about your child.
Beware of Oversharing
One final note for this section on the information we wish to
celebrate about our children: For teens, a big milestone is getting
their driver’s permit. It is natural to share that achievement with
others. I remember showing my permit to people when I first got
it. However, with today’s tools, people are so excited about
sharing the moment that they aren’t thinking about the security
implications of posting a full-on picture of their permit or their
child’s permit online. Driver’s permits include date of birth, home
address, physical characteristics, and the license number. I have
seen both teens and parents of teens share this on Facebook. I
have heard from my daughter that “everybody does it.”
The recent study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project
shows that while teens feel that they have control over their
privacy settings when it comes to a tool like Facebook, they are
woefully unconcerned about third-parties (read marketers, spammers) gathering their data. Part of the challenge is that I do
not believe schools are doing enough to help young people
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understand the implications of sharing private information on
public networks. Young people are not reading the EULAs for
sites like Facebook, and they just aren’t thinking about the
overall implications. Ongoing conversations I have had with my
daughter and her friends confirm that high schools are not
addressing these issues in a consistent manner, if at all.
Having conversations with your teens about this type of scenario
will help everyone in the family become more sensitive to the
realities of sharing personally identifiable information in an online
space.
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chapter twelve
congratulations, you have an
eighteen-year old!
High school is ending and either your child is heading off to
college or they are heading out into the workforce. Some young
people will be leaving for good, while others may stay home
longer. Maybe your child is taking a gap year before they go to
college or perhaps they are backpacking across Europe. It’s a time
of new beginnings, endings, and major transition for families.
Your child is now considered an adult at 18. Whether you are
ready to accept that fact or whether they are really ready for it
doesn’t really matter. That is the expectation. Legally, they don’t
have to let you know their grades and they don’t have to ask
your permission to do things.
As a college professor and advisor to young people who come
into college at age 18, I have seen a wide mix of family situations,
from students who come on campus with little to no family
support, to others who have struck a balanced middle ground,
to those who are unable to make a decision without parental
involvement. The blessing and the curse of our digital
communication tools is that they keep us connected. But as with
all things during this transition of our children into adulthood,
that connection will very much need to be carefully evaluated
and will change, perhaps dramatically, as they embark on their
own lives.
congratulations , you have an
eighteen - year old !
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Transitioning to Adulthood
What is a parent supposed to do and what should your children
be doing as you begin to transition away from day-to-day contact?
The first step is to talk through how you will maintain contact as
they head out into this next phase of their lives. You will still be
able to be in contact with your child through telephone and
texting and whether they wish to reach out to you on social tools.
But the days of you monitoring and providing guidance are now
complete.
The tables have completely turned. It is now up to your child
to decide how they would like to contact you. Again the
conversations you have with your child will set the tone for what
happens next. You may both agree that you like to remain friends
on tools such as Facebook and Twitter. And as long as you both
agree on the boundaries, that’s fine. But I will say that as a parent
if you find yourself Facebook-stalking your child to find out
what they are doing at college rather than having a personal
conversation, you may want to reconsider your choices.
Think about:
• What do I really need to know about my child now that they
are 18?
• Have I set the foundation? Can I trust that foundation?
• Am I ready to back away from monitoring and paying
attention and leave it in their hands?
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So, what should you talk to your child about? There’s a whole
new set of considerations they need to be thinking about. Schools
and employers monitor social media tools, and depending on
your child’s interests there may be more monitoring. For example,
if your child is entering a security field or a field that deals with
vulnerable populations, expectations will be different than for
fields like marketing or science. It is also hard to know what level
of monitoring will happen in the future.
Conversation Starters
At this point you have hopefully already set a foundation that
should get you through this transition and give your child the
confidence they need to be successful online. Ask your child the
following questions:
• Are you ready to be thinking about the implications of your
digital footprint on the internships/jobs you will look for, on
your friends, on your family?
This is a fabulous conversation starter and perhaps one that
your child will actually instigate as they get further into their
professional career.
Don’t be surprised if they come to you and ask you to change
your behavior online or ask for your help as they build their
online profiles for a professional network. For example, I have
a former student who had to have an interesting conversation
with his father as he got ready to graduate college. He and
his father have the same name. His father had an active
professional website. The student was growing his own
professional connections and I recommended that he ask his
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| 123
father to link from his website to the student’s website. Suddenly they have moved away from providing each other with
recommendations and support online to a more professional
online relationship.
• Which social tools may I still follow/connect with you on?
Asking this question moves you away from monitoring your
child to your child setting the tone and the rules for how you
will communicate in the future. I am quite sure this is not an
easy conversation to have. As I look forward I know that I will
also have a hard time.
As a mom I will want to stay in contact with my daughter as
she goes to college. I have gotten very comfortable and used
to that. However, I also have the benefit of being a college
professor and advisor to students, which allows me insight
that other parents may not have. And I know no matter how
hard it is to let go, it is better for your child at this stage. They
know you are there for them if they need you. Each child will
be different in how they answer this question and how much
they want to communicate with their parents.
I have students who have very close communication with their
parents via a tool like Facebook and I have other students
who talk with their parents on the phone every week but do
not share content with their parents on Facebook. I also have
students who have set their privacy settings in such a way
that parents can only see a few things.
Only you and your child can answer this question and each
answer will be as unique as each family is.
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• What is our preferred communication tool of choice? When
can I reach out to you?
Perhaps you’ll set a weekly call time, or a more informal texting routine, or a Skype chat. Your goal here is to find the
appropriate times and way to communicate.
Don’t make the mistake of contacting your college student
during a class. I can tell you that we professors really don’t
like that. I’ve heard countless stories from colleagues who had
classes interrupted by well-meaning parents as they called
their child, or one where the student was caught on Facebook
chatting with their mom and the professor took over the
conversation. Remember, if your child needs you they will let
you know.
Use your social and communication tools now to stay connected
in a positive manner. Strike a balance between letting go and
staying informed but trust that you have set the right foundation
for your digitally-savvy child as they become a digitally-savvy
adult.
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chapter thirteen
advice from young adults
As part of my research, I sent out a survey and asked 18-26 year
olds what advice they would give to parents about digital communication tools. I’ve categorized their responses and would
remind you that each of these individuals has their own use
philosophy as well. So as you read through these consider how
their advice fits in with your philosophy and your family’s beliefs.
On Monitoring
“Encourage your children to share what they’re doing with you
vs. sneaking and monitoring their every post. Monitoring for
protection and safety is essential, but allow your child some level
of privacy.”
“Be a parent—be invasive. Have their password. Have the ability
to monitor their activity, and use it.”
“Join the networks your kids want to be on. Be with them, not
stalking them.”
“Don’t incessantly check their Facebook and things like that, kids
know how to get around you checking their stuff.”
“Monitoring is the key. Keep an open dialogue about what the
kids are doing.”
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“I would say it’s good to monitor, advise and makes rules about
using them depending on your parenting styles but don’t be
overbearing.”
On Talking to Your Children
“Be open and honest with your children and encourage frequent
dialogue about their social media use, but don’t be overbearing.”
“Speak up if they are posting negative or harmful posts about
themselves or others.”
“It’s better to have your kids come to you for advice than to use
the Internet for advice.”
“Talk to your kids about online safety including friending strangers, posting their whereabouts or routines, and profile privacy.
Make sure your child knows they can talk to you if they feel they
are being bullied online.”
“No matter what you do/say, they are going to be using digital
media, a lot. Make sure you tell them how important it is to use
it wisely.”
“Don’t smother your children! If you feel the need to say anything,
tell them to be safe. To never give out their name, town, or
address, no matter how nice the person on the other side of the
screen is. If they were really nice, they wouldn’t be asking you.”
“Stay open to listening to the concerns of your teen, but be aware
that online can be incredibly important in building communities
that can be hard to find offline.”
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On Privacy
“...don’t use social media as a way to insert yourself into every
aspect of their lives. If they haven’t told you about the new crush
they’re posting about, chances are, they don’t want to talk to
you about it just yet.”
“While I believe in privacy for everyone, particularly for kids at a
young age, an open forum on the net is not the place for it. You
should feel comfortable with the fact that you have the authority
to monitor what they do as children on these kinds of websites.”
“Do not, however, make a habit of following them around on the
Internet or recording their web interactions. That’s an invasion of
their privacy, and will lead them to go out of their way to hide
things from you.”
“Maybe they are fine with you friending their classmates or following them on Twitter but will be really upset when you comment on every picture.”
“All teenagers look for privacy and giving a certain degree of
privacy can go a long way in building trust.”
On the “Dangers” of the Internet
“In general, don’t think the Internet is a dangerous or scary place;
the negative sentiment will get you nowhere. Instead, think of
the Internet as the largest collection of opportunities ever assembled.”
“Be street smart.”
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“The Internet isn’t as scary as most parents believe.”
“Be careful not to be too overprotective but do educate you kids
on the different things that could happen if their information is
exposed to strangers.”
“Don’t stop your children from using these tools, they need to
learn how to appropriately use them to participate in a modern
society increasingly reliant to them.”
“Don’t base your parenting off of the absolute worst case scenarios or what you hear in the news.”
On Having Consequences
“No matter what, your children are going to be using this stuff.
So, have consequences.”
“Be upfront about your expectations for online etiquette, and
occasionally check up on them to make sure they are following
your expectations.”
“You’re the parent—parent their social media.”
“My advice to parents of middle school and high school kids is to
let them roam and explore the Internet as they would the forest
in your backyard. A scraped knee will teach a kid to be more
careful than an empty warning. Just remember to set realistic
boundaries so they don’t accidentally wander into the wrong
backyard!”
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On Trust
“Trust your kids. Most of the time they will make good decisions
about what they post online. They may be more tech-savvy than
you, but they also know that you can probably find them online
if you want to.”
“Older end of high school—don’t overstep bounds. Have an open
conversation with your kid and what involvement they would like
you to have.”
“Just remember that teens want their space. DON’T try to friend
them but let them friend YOU.”
“By ‘friending’ your child, you have to be willing to step back from
the parenting role and take what they post with a grain of salt.
Don’t stalk, limit iteration to the norm by which you would interact at home.”
On the Digital Footprint
“High school students need to consider the consequences of their
social profile in terms of employment and collegiate studies. Extra
caution should be exercised. I’ve seen close friends lose a position
that, by their credentials, they should have had over their lack of
discretion online. In a similar fashion, I have met people during
my college experience who had similar issues in getting into
school. While my particular institution does not look at online
profiles as a component of their admissions decision, other colleges and trade schools do partake in the practice.”
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“Remind them once in awhile that conflict is bad, and whatever
you put on the Internet is out there for the whole world to see.”
On Letting Go
“As you and your child are getting ready to make the shift into
the physical distance of them going to college, you also have to
make a distance online. It is better to respect the line they draw
for you, then to have them unfriend you the second they leave
the house and go away to school.”
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templates
Our Technology Philosophy
1. As a family, I believe that technology ________________
our lives.
2. I am _______________ about technology in our lives.
3. The more technology changes/evolves the more __________
I become.
4. In my daily life I use technology (list how many hours)
______________.
5. According to the Forrester Technographics Ladder, my primary type is a ____________________. My secondary type
is a _________________________.
6. What are your thoughts on:
a. Video games
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
No, never
Sometimes is ok
Educational only
The more the merrier
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b. Social sharing
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
I’m a private person. No sharing.
People share too much these days.
Sharing means caring.
I overshare and I like it that way.
c. Mobile technology
i. I don’t want to be connected all the time. Cell
phones are for emergencies only.
ii. I like knowing I can reach my family when I need
to.
iii. I like being connected and having access to the
apps and tools I need.
iv. I need to be connected all the time (job, life choice,
etc).
d. I primarily use technology in my daily life for:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
work/school because I have to
to stay connected to my family/friends
to simplify my life (apps, tools, information)
for play, relaxation
e. Rank these in priority from most important in your life to
least important (you could give it up):
i. Outside/Inside activity time (can be physical,
games, some type of activity that is shared with
others or is solo such as reading that does not
include online gaming, social networks, etc, but
templates
| 133
may including reading on a Kindle or Nook as an
example of screen time)
ii. In home TV time (watching traditional TV shows,
DVDs, movies at home, with the family or solo),
requiring some type of access to cable or dish network.
iii. Online activity time (can include online games or
console games, social networks, music, creating
things, but not work-related activities), requires an
active Internet connection.
iv. Work-related activities that require working from
home in some capacity that may require an active
Internet connection.
f. I am most worried about:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Privacy online
Keeping safe/secure online
Keeping up with all the technology changes
Understanding how to best use all the tools around
me
g. I am most excited about:
i. Ways in which technology makes my life easier
ii. Innovations that make games and movies more
realistic
iii. Having more access to information
iv. Being able to access my content from anywhere
7. I want our children to _______________ technology.
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8. List the top five resources you can turn to for help with technology in your lives. Be specific. For example instead of writing “friends” list your specific friends and what they can help
you with. For example I might list Jonathan for open source
and Jonathan (yes a different Jonathan) for security. For
online resources, take a look at the list I have provided at the
end of this book. ____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Now that you are pretty clear on your base similarities and differences, are you a family that is open to technological change?
Are you more conservative in your approach to allowing new
technologies in the home? Are you education-centric? More private? Use all of these to help set your guiding philosophy and
then turn to the age-appropriate sections for some specific guidelines and conversations to have with your child(ren).
As a family we believe that technology:
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
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Our Social Media/Technology Inventory
Use the template below to conduct a social media inventory for
yourself and your family. I’ve started you off with an example in
italics.
Website/Tool
Facebook
Purpose
Person Category
Notes
Sharing content,
Family, Close
Also use for
staying connected to
Friends, Friends
professional.
friends and family,
and Current and
gathering news,
Former Students
entertainment
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Our Content Sharing Plan
Use the following process map to help you and your family
decide what to post, what not to post, and what tools you might
use to post the content. As with all such tools, remember that
this map is a guideline that should be individualized to each
family based on your technology philosophy and your social
media inventory.
Once you’ve gone through this process a few times, you will find
it becomes much easier to think this way for all the content you
decide to share.
templates
| 137
1. Type of Content
Text
Picture
Audio
Video
Link
2. Purpose
Celebration
Information
Sharing
Networking
Staying in
Touch
3. Audience
Family
Friends
Community
Professional
4. Permission
Do you have the subject’s permissional
to post the content?
Should you get the subject’s
permission to post this content?
5. Level of Privacy
How private is the content?
How public should this content be?
6. How to Share
Using you Technology Audit where will you post?
7. Post or Do NOT Post
Do you meet all criteria to post publicly? Do you think this conent would be better
Post it to the appropriate network.
off staying private? if so, don’t post it.
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Our Technology Access Plan
When you have an opportunity to adopt a new digital communication tool in your family, run it through PAVER to see if it will
fit within your family. First, here is the filled out version. Below it
you will find a blank version that you can use to fill in your
answers for a given technology tool.
Purpose
what is the main purpose for the tool?
Is it a Social Network, a Learning
Management System, a Video Game?
Age Appropriateness
Is it age appropriate for your child(ren)?
Value
What value does it provide? Education?
Entertainment? Connection?
EULA
Have you read the End User License
Agreement? Are you comfortable with it
and ready to conform to and follow it?
Reviews/Resources
Have you read reviews and found
resources that provide more information
about the tool?
Purpose
Age Appropriateness
Value
EULA
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Reviews/Resources
Purpose
Age Appropriateness
Value
EULA
Reviews/Resources
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Have you read reviews and found
resources that provide more information
about the tool?
Ground Rules
Your family ground rules around use and access of technology
tools should be based on your technology philosophy and your
family’s values and beliefs. This template is designed to help you
write down the rules that you all agree with. My recommendation is that you have a few very focused and clear rules that
everyone in the family can follow. As was the case with the five
outlined earlier in the book, make sure they apply to everyone in
the family and that the consequences are clear. Be ready to revisit
these rules as your children grow, as new tools come out, and as
old ones change.
I’ve started you out with one in italics as an example.
templates
| 141
What is the
consequence
Why do we have
for breaking
Rule Name
Definition
this rule?
this rule?
The Real
All children can only
Not everyone
Anyone
Friends Rule
friend their real
online is your
friends on social
“friend” and we
breaking the
rule could
networks, mobile
need to be sure
lose access to
apps, and games.
how they are
that tool
Parents do the same
different. It is a
permanently
on family networks,
safety and privacy
or for an
but might connect
issue as well.
agreed upon
with people they
don’t know in person
for professional work.
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time.
What is the
consequence
Rule Name
Definition
Why do we have
for breaking
this rule?
this rule?
.
templates
| 143
resources
Throughout this book I have written about different websites that
I find helpful. Below I’ve provided a list of different places you
can go or simple help and answers to a mix of questions. From
Wikipedia to HowStuffWorks to associations like the Direct
Marketing Association, these websites can help you answer many
of your questions about technology tools.
• How online content is stored (Data Integration: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/data-integration.htm)
• How others find you online such as Brandyourself: http://
www.Brandyourself.com
• Information about Direct Marketing and Direct Mail: https://
www.dmachoice.org/
• How mobile and geolocation work (http://www.pcworld.
com/article/192803/geolo.html
• Security and Privacy basics (https://www.cdt.org/privacy/
guide/basic)
• Learn about COPPA (https://www.cdt.org/)
• What a EULA is and why you should read it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement)
144 | tuned - in family
• New Pew and Internet American Life stats (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-Social-Media-And-Privacy/
Summary-of-Findings.aspx)
• Email Etiquette (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
resource/636/1/)
• Email Etiquette for Students (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
owl/resource/694/1/)
I also recommend these sites as places for parents to stay
connected and get support:
• Common Sense Media: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/
• DigitalLiteracy.gov: http://www.digitalliteracy.gov
• EduTopia.org: http://www.edutopia.org/digital-literacy-technology-parent-resources
resources
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acknowledgments
When writing a book for the first time, or any time, there are
always many people to thank. This book is no different. I would
like to thank Tim Brookes for his invaluable advice and editing,
and the Champlain College Publishing Initiative students for
their guidance, numerous edits, perseverance, and patience
throughout the process. What a great team! I would also like
to thank all the individuals who contributed to the book through
the surveys they filled out and the experiences they have shared
with me, as well as the 170 people who helped to crowd source
the book title. Finally, a special thank you to my colleague and
friend Dr. Laurel Bongiorno who has taken the time to write a
Foreword for this book. Her encouragement to move forward
with my idea inspired me to take action. Her encouragement to
move forward with my idea inspired me to take action. Finally
for my dear friend Lori Pierelli who edited the final document to
make sure all the I’s were dotted and the T’s were crossed,
her keen eye enabled me to go forward with this book
with confidence.
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