Five parenting tips for online social networks...

For the last two years, my family has been going to the Thanksgiving dinners of other families they know, sharing in their holiday festivities, and being a part of something outside of our usual traditions. This inevitably leads to conversations I would not have during my normal family gatherings, as the majority of my family have little to no interest in technology and have miniscule internet presence aside from email and one LinkedIn page (my mother, which shocked me when I found out).
This year, I found myself sitting at a table with a concerned parent of a fourteen year old boy and a twelve year old girl, and at the mention that I work for a computer company, she immediately mentioned that her son has requested access to Facebook, and was very concerned about allowing him to get an account.

***Disclaimer***: I am not a parent. Although I have extensive experience working with teenagers as a police officer and houseparent at a children's home, and in my previous marriage was the stepfather to three teenagers, I do not claim to have any particular success at parenting, or know everything there is to know about parenting. What I have to say about this topic comes from a combination of those experiences and my own particular knowledge of technology, internet culture, and predator behavior, of which I will claim an above average amount of knowledge.

I suggested she let the fourteen year old son get an account, with rules attached, and to hold off on letting the daughter join a social network for a year or so, depending on her maturity.
I realize I may have lost some parents on this one, but I urge you to stay with me just a moment as I explain myself. We'll get back to the rules later. I know we have all seen the "To Catch a Predator" Dateline specials on TV, and the thought of letting little Sally or Bobby online to chat and converse with god knows who is scary, but I believe that restricting all social internet usage does almost as much damage and still leaves your child as vulnerable.
I am of the opinion that one of the duties of every parent is preparing their child for the world they will face when they leave the home. Traditionally, that has been done in the real world by allowing their child increasing responsibility, and providing a gradual introduction to the things they will face outside the home as they transition to adulthood. In the real world, most teenagers are limited by geography to the things they are exposed to, and you can somewhat control the places they go, things they do, and people they meet along the way.
The internet, conversely, is not limited by geography in a physical sense. You can meet thousands of people without leaving your home, see things that once upon a time you would have to go to the seediest places of the big city to see, and for the unwary, have as much potential to be victimized as a lamb in a wolf den.
Chances are, the internet will play a big role in your child's life. At the least, they will need basic email skills, if only for any job they are likely to get. For many of them, it will be a major part of their social interaction, career, and livelihood. If we spend so much time preparing children for the dangers and reality of the real world, I believe we should spend a substantial amount of time preparing them for the dangers and reality of the internet. The next big question is how.
Many of the things we do in the real world to prepare children for their lives apply on the internet for their virtual lives. We limit their interaction at first, slowly introduce them to controlled environments, and as they get older, gradually introduce them to what they will face when they are on their own. Just as you would not leave a ten year old unsupervised in the home, they should not be unsupervised on the internet. However, at fourteen, there may be times that you slowly give them more responsibility in their own care, while still being around to catch them if they have trouble.
It is in this spirit that I advised the mother to allow her fourteen year old son to have a Facebook account, provided there are rules involved. Here are the rules I suggested:

1. The parent should have the password to the account, and be able to log on and see all of his activity from time to time. At first this will be a very real measure, and she should log on to see what sort of activity her son is having on Facebook, and be able to openly discuss with him anything that is out of the ordinary or inappropriate. The child must understand that this is a condition of their access. There is much talk among parenting groups right now about the child's expectation of privacy, but at fourteen on the internet, the dangers outweigh the child's alleged right to privacy on an online account.
2. The child may not put any personal real life information online, i.e. address, phone number, social security number, and preferably not their full legal name. This is pretty obvious to adults, but chances are your child will not see the immediate danger of sharing such information online. They are not and should not be expected to know about identity theft, but this is a situation where you need to look out for their best interests later on. Their present safety from predators as well as their future credit score and ability to purchase a car or house are in danger on this one, so this is a big one to forget about.
3. The child may only have people on their friends list that they have met in real life. This can be a tough one for some children, because the value of the internet for some is they get to meet people they normally would not meet in real life; people with the same interests and hobbies. There will be time enough for that later, but right now we're focusing on developing good, safe, internet habits, and part of that is knowing who you are talking to. Their friends list should be a good mix of other children from school, church, family members about the same age, and to an extent some teachers, coaches, and adult role models in their lives. However, I urge caution on the presence of adults on your child's friends list, as many may not have the same online persona or presence they do in your child's real world interaction. I'm not saying they are bad people or predators, but the science teacher that is conservative during the school week may have pictures on their account your children are better off not knowing about. Hopefully, they will have kept this separate from an account your children are privy to anyway, but there are some school teachers in Mecklenburg County, NC, that are currently under investigation for content on their Facebook accounts that students had access to.
4. Anything the child creates that he or she wants to share online must be vetted by you first. The internet is an amazing place for creativity, and we are seeing an incredible boost in our culture because of the ability of the consumers of content to become content creators. Teenagers particularly love to use technology to find new ways to express themselves, whether through online videos, photos, or writing. The problem we face here is twofold; we want the child to express their creativity safely and appropriately, and we also want the content they produce to have if anything a positive effect on future college and career opportunities. As a general rule, anything your child publishes online is there for their lifetime or more, and search engines are only getting better at providing more accurate results for online content. At a previous job I used Google to search perspective employees (sometimes to their advantage, such as the case where I found a commendation from a federal prosecutor for a prospect in a Supreme Court case), and as a police officer I once used a social networking site to identify an assault suspect to another officer in a neighboring jurisdiction (it did not help him that his Myspace page was covered in marijuana images). The lesson is what your child publishes is as important as their name and reputation, because more and more it is their name and reputation. I am not even going to touch upon what happens when inappropriate videos of your child hit the internet, because the danger there is inherent within itself.
5. Monitor, monitor, monitor. All of these rules are difficult, and all of them are worthless unless you follow up with your child and discuss them on a regular basis. As your child gets older, there will be times to ease up and pass the responsibility on to them; a handing over of the keys, so to speak, but in the beginning, they need your guidance to get their start in the virtual world.

Shortly after I gave her this advice, the conversation went on to text messages, cell phones, and other mobile devices. I think she is at least considering what she is going to do when she allows him on Facebook, and in all reality, it is just a matter of time at this point. It is best she manages how it starts, how the account is used, and how he is introduced into this larger world.

For this post, I am sending it out to a friend that has a parenting blog, and posting it on a couple of sites, as it is a topic I think is useful to many parents facing the decision of whether to allow their children on Facebook. Feel free to leave comments and discuss anything I have mentioned. If you have your own tips, please leave them, as this is something I would like to address again further down the road.