The Washington Post’s article on technology and parents’ cluelessness about teen use has gotten me a little fired up. I want to protect my kids and all kids from the sick degenerates of the world. I want to round every one of them up and throw them in pit together with no food and let them rot until only one is left. But this is not reality and this is not helpful. What we need is real advice for living with technology and staying safe. Let’s face it: technology is not going away and thinking we can regulate and control the apps and games that our kids are exposed to is pretty naïve.
It comes down to two things: it’s virtually impossible to stay ahead of the technology game in terms of new apps – definitely not ahead of our kids who are often our own personal tech support team; and regulating every page or app our teens navigate to is the opposite of our Building the Foundation philosophy.
We build the foundation by regulating every moment of our infant’s life and little by little giving them opportunities for independence as they grow toward adulthood. There is just no way to control our teens’ environment enough to be sure that they are safe at all times. Nor should we do that if we could. We should be having conversations and building the relationship so that they listen to the red flags in their heads and make careful decisions when something feels “not quite right.” Our job is to guide them in making choices and allow them to make mistakes while they are younger and still at home so we can help them decipher why the mistake happened and what might be a better choice next time.
Eventually they have to be out on their own and capable of making good choices. It’s our responsibility to get them there and ensure that they have a process for making decisions based on what feels right in their hearts so they are equipped to handle the ugliness and deception of our twenty-first century society.