their children have social networking sites, even if the sites were not set up at their home. ... freely shared with Fac
Parents, students, and social networking: free resources By Christopher Wells
Wells is the author of Smarter Clicking: School Technology Policies that Work! from Corwin Press. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Let’s face it : pretending social networking does not exist is not the best strategy for parents. Even among my own friends with children, parents have “discovered” that their children have social networking sites, even if the sites were not set up at their home. The peer pressure for students to create social networking sites is tremendous, and almost impossible to avoid in middle- and high-school environments. In my district, I have given presentations to groups of parents who are desperate for guidance on shaping appropriate behaviors for their children using social networking. Thankfully, there are many resources available for free from various groups. The links below can be distributed to parents in your community to help them address social networking sites in their homes. (Special thanks also go to Melody Sowa, who compiled many of these resources for our school district.) 1. Do Not Advise Cold Turkey. When talking to parents about social networking, advocating a “cold turkey” approach is not recommended; avoiding social networking altogether is not an effective solution. Facebook, for example, is a pervasive part of the youth culture, and students are
pressured to create and update their profiles. Even if it means that students have to go to a friend’s house to use the internet freely, students will use social networking tools, whether through Google tools, YouTube, Yahoo! email, or blogsites like Tumblr. Considering the deal that Facebook just made with major SIM chip manufacturers, every new phone will have a version of the social networking tool built into the phone’s system. As a school leader, helping parents understand that developing independence from parents is a normal, healthy process is essential. 2. Privacy Means Protection. The reason that Facebook is currently valued at $50 billion and Google at $189 billion is because they sell data to marketing companies. Every click, every friend connection, every interest, and every mail message sent through Google, Yahoo! or Facebook, is analyzed. Marketing companies pay a great deal of money to obtain data that users freely shared with Facebook by people of all ages. This user data allows companies to target prospective clients with a great deal of accuracy for products they develop. With a little planning and forethought, students can be made aware of the importance of keeping personal information private, such as phone numbers and addresses, locations, and even vacation plans. By restricting the information put on social networking sites to trusted friends only, students can also avoid being easy targets for cyberbullies. 3. Avoid “Doom and Gloom” Messages. Many discussions I have held with parents around social networking become complaint sessions, often because parents feel that they have no control over their child’s online life. Social
networking has many positive aspects, too, such as maintaining friendships at a distance, giving busy students opportunities to reach out to others for help, and to build social contexts for appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Each of these activities, though, should include parental interactions, and some of the resources listed below describe some ways to “crack the code” between parents and their children to have more constructive conversations. If the parents have younger students, there is often an opportunity for positive modeling of appropriate behavior while the parent and child sit at a computer together. Yes, parenting does take time and a huge amount of effort, but a stronger relationship can result from a more positive view of social networking, since it is not going away any time soon. Useful links: Books: A wide variety of books are available for parents on bookseller websites, such as Amazon.com. Search for “Facebook parents” An excellent 49-page free guide from the State of Idaho McAfee, an internet safety company, also published a free 27-page guide for parents Websites: Many resources are freely available that offer everything from general to specific information about the interactions between social networking sites, students, and their parents.
ConnectSafely.org maintains a huge range of printable resources and community around safe social networking from every aspect of family life, in both English and Spanish OnGuard Online provides general information and many other links to sites dedicated to protecting children and their families online in English and Spanish The National Crime Prevention Council also created an online guide that is easy to understand and share with parents Although the Federal Trade Commission is not the first place I would look, the governmental group does offer a rich set of resources on their web page
As an administrator, these sites will not solve parents’ problems with social networking, but provide richer resources for you to share. I would also recommend developing a parent-sponsored group at your school responsible for distributing information to the school community on effective social network use. If you have a PTA or PTSA, engage this group to teach other parents of the best ways to hold conversations with their children around safe technology use. Social networking is a new, persistent tool, and partnering with parents, teachers, and community members, can strengthen your school community and protect students while online.
Learn More For more on this topic, read Smarter Clicking: School Technology Policies that Work!, a joint publication with Corwin Press, AASA, and NASSP. His book is
designed to provide ready, effective access to dozens of resources and processes to protect students using technology.
About the Author Christopher Wells is the Director of IT Policies and Communications for Gwinnett County Public Schools, the largest school district in Georgia. With over 160,000 students in the district, he responds to the diverse, creative ways technology is being used in classrooms. By incorporating realistic examples and messages with humor, compassion, and vision, Christopher presents regularly to diverse audiences and leaves listeners focused and energized on the development of new resources for students and teachers.
Email Christopher at
[email protected] or visit his web site: http://www.schooltechpolicies.com.
