The Facebook “threat” that emptied a Farmington Hills middle school has gotten attention from a parenting columnist for the Washington Post. Stacey Garfinkel tied the local story to recent studies that show while teens are more connected than ever, they’re posting things on-line that could hurt their chances of getting a job or being admitted to college.
Very interesting column:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2009/01/the_things_teens_post_online.html?hpid=news-col-blog
6 Comments
January 8, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Ms. Garfinkel’s column winnows the solution down to parental involvement, the only one that’s ever made sense. Haven’t we known this all along? It doesn’t matter what facilitates this type of behavior as much as it matters where it comes from. While our youth are bombarded with a wide range of “stimulating” information in this electronic age, the test is how it is dealt with.
Kids emulate their parents in many ways – including social dynamics. If these children don’t understand that lying, bullying, gossip and the like are not OK… why is that?
A relative of mine recently had an experience with some malicious Facebook entries aimed at her child, posted on a page created by a couple of her classmates. The page is called something like “The REAL Truth”, and is mainly an outlet for innuendo and gossip. When my relative contacted the parents of the children responsible (middle school), she was met with immediate denial (without investigation), counter–accusations and some serious vulgarity – from BOTH sets of parents. It was this kind of response that spoke to the above issue.. that instilling values starts at home.
Whether it’s the internet or the bathroom wall, this stuff is just a representation of that slice of society that sees it as normal behavior.
January 10, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I’m about to try a really long reach here, but wait – I’ll tie it all up.
I’m seeing the same thing as I noodle around with in the social media world. There’s a whole new class of entrepreneurs who are building “networks,” which are just on-line communities made up of friends and relatives and friends of friends of relatives and people who are attracted to what the business has to offer. From a business perspective, I’ve come to look at blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites as collections of neighborhoods. An entrepreneur can actually create a community around a business, the way downtown business districts used to attract people to build homes around them.
And in those neighborhoods live all different kinds of people who have the same kinds of issues that families have always had. Some parents just refuse to believe their children could ever do anything wrong, or they coddle their kids, or they don’t understand the importance of discipline or the need to set boundaries. (I have a whole theory about the generational erosion of parenting skills within the “progressive affluence” paradigm, but that’s too much for this.)
It occurs to me that the message never really changes, even when the medium does. All of the social and cultural problems we have not been able to crack are now becoming a problem on the Internet. Drug abuse (on-line “pharmacies”), bullying, adultery, theft (of identities, passwords, etc.), are all a part of everyone’s on-line experience. And what’s really unfortunate is that having relative anonymity on the Internet makes people even more bold in their actions. People believe signing on under a screen name gives them license to behave as badly as they’ve ever wanted.
What it comes down to, I think, is exactly what you’re saying: People are people, wherever you go. I’d just take it a step further and say a community is a community, whether it’s real or virtual.
January 10, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about the influence of “progressive affluence” on the erosion of parenting.
January 11, 2009 at 8:31 pm
It’s a working theory, so feel free to pick it apart – but basically, I think we have lost a great deal to the idea that every generation of parents should work to make a better life for their children. That’s what I meant by “progressive affluence.” It’s gotten to be about material wealth and comfort, making sure kids have the latest and the best, to the point where too many kids have a sense of entitlement, rather than a sense of responsibility.
This isn’t about laying blame. Generations of parents have been very well intentioned. But I’m looking at a recession caused in large part by people trying to buy their way into a better life, and what this is doing to the children and grandchildren of my peers. I know too many parents who have worked so hard to maintain a lifestyle, they’ve not had a life. And then you get, “I can’t spend time with you, so here, have some presents,” which results in more credit card debt, more need to work over-time. It’s a vicious cycle that leaves parents less focused on parenting and more on providing.
Without question, some kind of course correction is needed. I’ve been thinking that instead of worrying so much about making a better life for our children, we should worry about raising better children. And by better, I mean less focused on material gain, more on compassion, responsibility, generosity of spirit, honesty, peace – all the things we say we value.
That’s it in a nutshell.
January 24, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Thank you for responding, Joni. I may meander a bit but I wanted to share my perspective. Several years ago, I read The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Han, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. In it, he talks about finding the joy in the everyday. It seemed to me that I ought to be able to find my joy or peace in the moment even when those moments included four very needy children under the age of 8 including a baby who never stopped unless he was nursing.
Around that same time, I started getting into the idea of gratitude as a guiding principle while reading the Simple Abundance series of books. I knew I wanted this four high maintenance kids to be respectful, resourceful, and resilient. I could think of no better way than to model a way of enjoying the moments we have while giving thanks for the blessings we have even while other things continued to go very, very wrong. Like most families, we have dealt with illnesses, deaths, job losses, and the like.
Last week, I was attending a meeting where several people complained that university scholarship awardees were not willing to show the appropriate level of gratitude toward donors or members of the selection committee. Many felt it was due to overly permissive parenting and not spanking them enough. I think, like you and others point out, we have failed these young people by not being better examples. Instead of modeling the idea that one should always look out for their “rights” and their “due” which are nearly all material items, we need to focus on our relationships with one another.
This past holiday season, my children were willing to sacrifice most of their gifts in order to help pay for some beloved relatives to come visit instead. To them, it wasn’t even a choice. People, especially loved ones, will always trump things.
Perhaps the gift of this latest economic downturn will be an end to what you called progressive affluence with all its deleterious effects.
January 28, 2009 at 6:03 am
Miranda, you’ve done your children a great service by instilling a sense of gratitude and the value of relationships. When others are looking outside themselves for fulfillment and happiness, they’ll have it built in. That’s the secret of a happy life. I also think putting kids in front of television shows and commercials that hammer home that “commercialism rules” message is a huge mistake. I read an article the other day about companies that are developing toys designed with built-in messages that teach positive values. Which is lovely, except that by creating a whole series of products, they’re promoting commercialism and over-consumption. I was thinking today about that line from the movie Parenthood, where one of the characters says, “You have to have a license to drive. You have to have a license to fish. But they’ll let any (expletives deleted) be a father.” I don’t know how we get to parents, except perhaps to model this behavior not only with our children, but with our friends and neighbors as well.